London — Saudi Arabia’s isolation of Qatar has been brewing since 1995, and the dispute’s long past and likely lingering future are best explained by natural gas. Not only was that the year when the father of the current emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, toppled his own pro-Saudi father, it was also when the tiny desert peninsula was about to make its first shipment of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the world’s largest reservoir. The offshore North Field, which provides virtually all Qatar’s gas, is shared with Iran, Saudi Arabia’s hated rival. The wealth that followed turned Qatar into not just the world’s richest nation, with an annual per-capita income of $130,000, but also the world’s largest LNG exporter. The focus on gas set it apart from its oil-producing neighbours in the Gulf Co-operation Council and allowed it to break from domination by Saudi Arabia which, in Monday’s statement of complaint, described Qataris as an "extension of their brethren in the Kingdom" as it...
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