In a shift drawing historical comparisons to the takeoff of Saudi Arabia's oil industry several decades ago, Qatar has moved swiftly in recent years to develop its huge offshore natural gas reserves - once dismissed as practically worthless because of the difficulty of transporting gas to distant markets - while cementing strong military and economic ties with the United States.

Driven by an ambitious, well-educated and open-minded ruling elite, these moves have allowed Qatar to leap ahead of Russia and Iran, the only countries with larger reserves of natural gas, seizing new opportunities to export the fuel to markets in North America, Southern Europe and the Far East.

Tankers laden with gas super-cooled to a liquid state already depart each day for Japan and South Korea from the northern port of Ras Laffan, not far from Al Udeid Air Base in the Qatari desert, the U.S. military's main air operations center in the Arabian Peninsula. Soon the ships will start delivering their cargoes to ports in Texas and Louisiana in the most ambitious project to date to bring natural gas from the Middle East to American consumers.

International Herald Tribune