Qatari Energy and Industry Minister Mohammed Bin Saleh Sada said that he expected the demand for natural gas to grow in 2017, Sputnik reported.

“Since the meeting in Tehran last year the dynamics of change on the gas market have accelerated compared to the usual situation. In 2015, the demand for natural gas grew by 1.9 percent, which is more than twice the 2014 level, and I expect that next year the demand for gas will keep growing,” Sada said at a ministerial meeting of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) in Doha.

He also emphasized that the meeting was taking place amid gradual changes on the energy market and that gas exporting countries should use the opportunity to coordinate and cooperate with each other in order to boost the consumption of gas as a source of “clean” energy.