The importance of Ras Laffan to Qatar's natural gas industry

Until the early 1990s, Ras Laffan was little more than an idyllic stretch of beach, some 80 kilometers from the Qatari capital, Doha. Today, it's home to an enormous industrial complex processing the nation's natural gas. It's hard to believe, but typical of Qatar's rapid economic development in recent years. Each year, millions of tons of natural gas are processed at the port of Ras Laffan. And there are plans to more than double the size of the complex over the coming years. This means that not only is Ras Laffan a massive industrial plant, but it's also one of the largest construction sites in the world.

Thousands of construction workers from more than 40 countries are busy welding together enormous steel pipes, building gigantic gas storage tanks in the sand and assembling huge steel structures. The wind and, above all, the high temperatures push the workers to the limit. Concrete, for example, has to be cooled using ice-cold water, otherwise it would never set in the 50-degree-C heat.

Ras Laffan is one of the fastest growing industrial regions in the world. Among the cranes, enormous installations process the country's most precious commodity. From here, ships will transport Qatar's natural gas all over the world.

To allow the gas to be transported more easily and efficiently, it is cooled to -162 degrees C. At this temperature, the gas becomes a liquid. As a result, its volume is decreased by a factor of 600. Without this procedure, the transport costs would be immense. The cooling process is achieved in a number of stages involving massive cooling plants. The amount of energy needed to cool the gas is enormous. The equivalent of 15 percent of the gas's energy is used up by cooling and transportation alone.

The industrial region Ras Laffan covers an area of 106 square kilometers. And as demand for Qatar's liquid gold grows, so too is the likelihood that the Ras Laffan industrial complex will do the same.