How come Qatar has 14% of the world’s natural gas?

Why does Qatar dare to offend Saudi Arabia? Ranked third in the world in natural gas reserves and 14th in the world in oil reserves

#2022World Cup# Qatar, which is extremely rich, spent US$220 billion to host a massive World Cup in 2022. It also allows us to see how wealthy the tycoons in the Middle East are.

It turns out that besides Dubai, there are also such tycoons from the Middle East who spend money like water! In fact, Qatar is very small, only 11,500 square kilometers in size, which is equivalent to the area of ??a prefecture-level city in China. At the same time, Qatar’s population is only 2.65 million, a figure that even larger county-level cities in China can reach.

How can such a small country be so proud? In fact, apart from Hao, Qatar is also very tyrannical. Why do you say that? Qatar has almost offended all its neighbors.

1. Saudi Arabia even plans to turn Qatar into an island country!

Qatar is a standard Persian Gulf country, surrounded by sea on three sides and only one side borders Saudi Arabia. In fact, Qatar’s neighbor in the past was the United Arab Emirates. However, the UAE and Saudi Arabia later exchanged land, causing Qatar's neighbor to become Saudi Arabia.

Ibn Saud, the founder of Saudi Arabia, was a heroic ruler who wanted to unify the entire Arabian Peninsula and even the entire Arab world throughout his life. But it's a pity that little Qatar is right in front of him, but he can't take it down. Why? Because at that time, Qatar was a British colony.

In 1971, Qatar became officially independent. After independence, Qatar lost the protection of Britain and was actually trembling. After all, with only a small amount of territory and population, how can it compete with a behemoth like Saudi Arabia?

For this reason, Qatar, which has just become independent, has always been Saudi Arabia’s little brother. With its low-key approach to development, Qatar has really not been eaten up by Saudi Arabia!

Don’t think Qatar is stupid. In fact, while easing relations with Saudi Arabia, Qatar has also found another powerful ally across the Persian Gulf, and that is Iran.

Iran is very powerful in the Middle East, and even Saudi Arabia has to be a little wary. With Iran's blessing, Saudi Arabia will have to think carefully if it wants to take action against Qatar.

It is this kind of resourcefulness that has gradually brought Qatar to life.

After Hamad came to power in 1995, he and his wife Moza began to flex their muscles to revitalize Qatar's economy. Moza, in particular, can be called a genius investor. They used the money they exchanged for natural gas and oil to invest in various money-making businesses around the world, increasing the value of Qatar several times.

So much so that in 2020, the per capita GDP of Qataris has reached US$61,000, while the per capita GDP of Saudi Arabia next door is only US$20,000, a difference of three times. Now that it has spent huge sums of money to create such a unique World Cup, Saudi Arabia, the biggest brother in Arabia, was instantly eclipsed by Qatar.

So Saudi Arabia hates it, especially the good relationship between Qatar and Iran, which makes Saudi Arabia even more unfavorable to Qatar. Therefore, in 2017, Saudi Arabia called a bunch of Arab boys around and decided to block Qatar.

At the most serious time, Saudi Arabia even planned to dig a river on the border between Qatar and Saudi Arabia to completely turn Qatar into an island country.

2. Why is Qatar fearless?

Logically speaking, how can such a small, palm-sized country dare to provoke a big brother like Saudi Arabia? The rulers of Qatar are actually very helpless.

Khalifa, the first generation ruler of Qatar after its independence, actually had a very good relationship with Saudi Arabia. But a good premise is that Qatar must sell its rights and interests to Saudi Arabia. They even handed over the task of protecting national security to Saudi Arabia. Is this okay?

The second ruler Hamad actually took advantage of his father Khalifa’s vacation to seize the position of emir by force. Therefore, Hamad and his father Khalifa The relationship between France and France is very bad, and their political views are completely different.

So, since Hamad and Moza came to power, Qatar has changed its past behavior and not only embarked on the path of independence, but also moved further and further away from its old neighbor Saudi Arabia.

So why is Qatar so stubborn?

First, Qatar is very rich in natural gas and oil resources. Qatar’s natural gas reserves rank third in the world, with approximately 24.5 trillion cubic meters, second only to Iran and Russia. At the same time, Qatar’s oil reserves rank 14th in the world. Rich resources are the reason why Qatar dares to challenge Saudi Arabia.

Secondly, Qatar is backed by a big tree to enjoy the shade. Qatar has a good relationship with Iran, which is why Saudi Arabia is afraid of it. In addition, before 2021, Qatar will also be China's second largest supplier of liquefied natural gas. With these intricate relationships, Saudi Arabia wants to take action? Not that easy. After all, once you take action, you will touch the interests of these big countries.

Third, Qatar continues to show up internationally. This is true for the 2022 World Cup, and it is also true for various investments in the world. Wherever they can appear, they are actively participating. This is also a great pressure for Saudi Arabia. After all, in the 21st century, no one is a barbaric country, and we cannot swallow others up without any reason.

These are the important reasons why Qatar has been able to exist independently for so long.

3. Opening the door to welcome guests, hosting a World Cup seems to be the most cost-effective.

Why hold the World Cup? Why spend so much money to do it? In fact, Qatar has one purpose: to let the whole world know about Qatar. Rather than saying that they spent 220 billion US dollars on hosting a game, it would be better to say that they spent the money to build a brand new tourist city.

Everyone knew in the past that when traveling to the Middle East, you must go to Dubai, especially the Burj Al Arab Hotel there, which is completely a symbol of wealthy people.

But starting from 2022, will you only go to Dubai? In other words, Dubai is a thing of the past, and now Qatar is the most popular tourist city.

There are brand-new urban constructions, World Cup venues that have been built with huge sums of money, and museums containing various world treasures. There are also various beaches, Islamic cultural exhibitions, etc. You will never regret a visit.

After a business card is issued, Qatar will surely usher in a peak tourism season in the future. Resources are limited. Although their country's resources can be exploited for at least one or two hundred years, they can't just sit back and have nothing, right? Therefore, transformation is particularly important. Traveling is naturally the best choice.

Written at the end: Where is the future of Qatar?

Although Qatar is said to have 2.65 million people, in fact only 330,000 are Qataris, and the remaining more than 2 million people are actually immigrants from various countries. Good guy, have you ever seen any country with a population structure like this? The number of immigrants actually exceeds the number of indigenous people?

This has also caused Qatar's various policies to begin to tilt towards the country's indigenous people. This results in the disadvantages of family management. For example, Qatar’s management is generally native Qatari, while technical talents are generally foreign immigrants.

If this continues, the shortcomings of family-owned companies will definitely be exposed. If Qatar is regarded as a big company, then the nobles have always played the role of baton in it, while the truly capable people can only stare at it. How far do you think this company can go?

I remember that when Yu Minhong was running New Oriental, he was troubled by family members working in the company, so he would rather offend his mother than fire all these people!

In fact, if Qatar wants to truly get out of its predicament, in addition to economic transformation, the best way is to decentralize power. Let capable people take up management positions as much as possible and build Qatar into the most inclusive country in the world. Then the future will be unlimited.