His Excellency Abdullah Bin Hamad Al-Attiyah, president of the Qatar Administrative Control & Administration Authority and former Minister of Energy & Industry, accepted the MEED Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his unique contribution to the global energy industry at a ceremony at the Grand Hyatt Doha on the evening of 18 February.

Al-Attiyah’s career began in 1972 when he joined Qatar’s Ministry of Finance & Petroleum. He was head of the ministry’s international and public relations department in 1973-76. It was in this period that the government of Qatar set up the Qatar General Petroleum Corporation (QGPC), the national oil company now called Qatar Petroleum (QP).

This was followed by three years as director of the office of the Minister of Finance and Petroleum, and in 1989-1992, as the director of the Office of the Minister of Interior and the Acting Minister of Finance and Petroleum. In 1992, Attiyah was appointed Minister of Energy & Industry, a post Alk-Attiyah held until January 2011. In this period Qatar emerged as a global energy giant and QP, of which he was chairman and managing director, as one of the most influential oil companies on earth. In this time he served as chairman and president of OPEC.

Projects completed in this period included the construction at Ras Laffan of 77 million tonnes of LNG capacity, the world’s largest LNG complex, and the 140,000 barrel-a-day Pearl GTL gas-to-liquids, plant, the biggest of its kind on earth.

“There is no doubt that the MEED Lifetime Achievement Award is richly deserved,” MEED Events Chairman Edmund O’Sullivan at the award ceremony. “His Excellency is a man for all seasons; a proud son of Qatar and an inspiration for everyone in this country and the region.’

The presentation ceremony was attended by 150 VIPs and delegates attending the MEED Qatar Projects 2013 Conference.