Reuters reported that Qatar is considering taking a stake in Russia's No2 gas producer Novatek.

Mr Mohammed al Sada energy minister of Qatar said that “We are looking at a stake in Novatek as well as in the Yamal project. We are interested in both Yamal as well as Novatek but declined to specify the size of the potential stake. We are engaged in discussions with both.”

He said that Qatar, which with an annual production capacity of 77 million tonnes is the world's leading LNG exporter was struggling to find buyers for all of it until a tsunami wrecked Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant in March driving up gas demand.

Mr Sada said that “We are open to with Russian companies, especially Gazprom. We are interested in partnering with these companies in projects outside Qatar.

Qatar had indicated on Sunday that it was in negotiations to take a stake in the Yamal project, an Arctic liquefied natural gas project under development by Novatek. The Yamal project will develop the South Tambey field located in the Arctic area of the Yamal peninsula.

Resources from the condensate and gas field are expected to produce 5 million tonnes of LNG per year when production starts in 2016 and reach 15 million tonnes per year in 2018.

(Sourced from Reuters)