Manama :No energy will replace oil in the near future, Qatar's deputy prime minister and minister of energy and industry has said.
"Oil will continue to be the main source of energy for at least another 50 years," Abdullah Bin Hamad Al Atiyyah said as he objected to the use of the term "alternative sources of energy."
"When major consumers sit with us away from the press, they urge us to invest more money in the field and to develop capacities.
"However, when they are in public, we hear expressions such as ‘foreign oil' and statements such as ‘We cannot trust the producers' and ‘We need to think of alternative sources of energy'.
Confusion
"We are honestly confused and do not know whether to believe the public statements or the private statements," Al Atiyyah told the Bahrain Global Forum.
The Qatari minister said that oil and gas producers did not want to feel threatened.
"We have just heard about Congressmen pushing for fighting foreign oil. What is foreign oil?
"We believe in free trade and US products are in our country. Do we say that they are foreign products and we should fight them?
Creating uncertainty
"Do we say we should pull them out of our market? If they threaten with this foreign oil claim, we believe that they want to create uncertainty," the minister said.
"Is foreign an accusation? Are foreigners criminals? I am a foreigner when I go abroad, so does that make me a criminal?"
According to Al Atiyyah, one of the major challenges facing the developing countries today is the need to provide adequate, affordable and reliable sources of energy, such as electricity and gas to two billion people who lack these basic services.
