Leave oil and gas out of US-China trade dispute

Oil and gas should be left out of the escalating trade dispute between the US and China, global energy executives told CNBC on Tuesday.

"One of the things that could be damaging for the LNG (liquefied natural gas) industry in the US is the taxes that could be levied on them by China and others," Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, the chief executive of Qatar Petroleum, the biggest LNG exporter in the world, said.

Al-Kaabi told CNBC's Steve Sedgwick at the Gastech conference in Barcelona that the oil and gas sector should be "left out of this trade discussion."

"I think it needs to be looked at carefully because I don't think it's to the benefit of the oil and gas industry to have politics and taxation enter into this (trade dispute)," he said.

Al-Kaabi's comments came after US President Donald Trump announced a further round of punitive tariffs on Chinese imports that is likely to prompt China to retaliate.

The tariffs will start at 10 per cent before rising to 25 per cent at the start of 2019.

China has said it will reciprocate, although Trump has promised further tariffs on around $267 billion of additional imports should it do so.

China has previously signalled that US LNG -- a form of the fuel super-chilled to liquid so it can be shipped more easily and safely -- could be subject to a tariff of 25 per cent, but has held off implementing the measure so far.

If imposed, the tariffs could deal a significant blow to the US gas industry. China is the second largest importer of LNG globally and in 2017, about 15 per cent of US LNG exports went to the Asian superpower.

LNG exports matter to the US, particularly in its quest to become a dominant energy exporter.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its 2018 annual Gas report, released in June, that global LNG exports will increase 30 per cent by 2023 with the US expected to become the second largest supplier in the world.

Qatar Petroleum's Al-Kaabi recognised that while tariffs on US LNG exports to China might help his company, in terms of making its LNG exports more attractive, the measures would have a negative impact on the industry.

"It could serve Qatar to be more competitive, in comparison with the US, when some of the countries put taxes on US LNG - but I don't think long-term that it's good for the market to have politics and to have taxation on a very important basic requirement for humanity, which is energy."