Qatar's oil minister has told US lawmakers that his country had plenty of gas to meet the rising US energy demand, but expressed concern that LNG terminals were not being constructed fast enough.

Abdullah bin Hamad Al Attiyah, speaking after meeting with Senator Pete Domenici, chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and Senator Jeff Bingaman, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said his country - with the help of major US oil companies - has invested heavily in facilities to produce and transport LNG and aimed to be one of the biggest suppliers of LNG to the US.
"We expressed some concern about (US) terminals," Al Attiyah said. "We want to see that the terminals will be ready in the right time because now we are already committed. We have built bigger ships and eight million tonnes of LNG train. We want to be sure that everything comes at the right time."
ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips (are investing billions of dollars in two LNG projects in Qatar to produce LNG for export to the US market.
Although LNG is seen by many US energy industry experts as one of the ways to meet growing energy demand, environmentalists and state officials have opposed energy plans to build the LNG facilities. They fear that tankers and facilities could harm the environment.
Domenici and Bingaman said they favoured more LNG terminals, Al Attiyah said.
"We got very positive feedback. They said America needs more diversified energy sources and said gas from Qatar will help them with this," Al Attiyah said.
Qatar's LNG targets have risen steadily over the past few years as the country pushed ahead with several big development projects.
Only a few years ago, Qatar planned to produce 40 million tonnes per year of LNG by 2020, but the country will now reach 77 million tonnes per year by 2012 because the industry has developed rapidly.
"We will be one of the biggest suppliers of gas to the United States but to supply LNG you need terminals. Without terminals there is no LNG. I think that they have started to understand that they have to work fast to implement more terminals so that they can accommodate more gas. The time is running," the Qatari minister said.