The German government, which is working to reduce the country's dependence on Russian oil and gas, has discussed energy supplies with Qatar, Minister of State in the German Federal Chancellery, Jörg Cokes, said on Saturday.
"We discussed bilateral cooperation, especially in the field of energy and corporate investments," Cookies added on Twitter, explaining that he had spoken with Qatar's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, who also heads Qatar's sovereign wealth fund, last Wednesday.
Germany is about to shut down its last nuclear power plant this year, and plans to build its first liquefied natural gas plant within two years.
Qatar is one of the countries recently contacted by the United States to redirect gas supplies to Europe.
Qatar has said that it will likely divert between 10-15% of the volume of LNG shipments.
It plans to increase LNG production capacity to 126 million tons per year by 2027 from 77 million tons at present.
German Economy Minister Robert Habeck told the German newspaper "Frankfurt", that he intends to make Germany no longer need coal and oil from Russia within less than a year.
"Every day, and in fact every hour, we are saying goodbye to Russian imports to a certain extent," Habek told the newspaper. "If this works, we will not need Russian coal in the fall...and Russian oil by the end of the year."
"Gas has become more complicated because Germany does not yet have the ability to import liquefied natural gas," he said, stressing that the immediate ban on supplies may cause bottlenecks during the next winter, an economic slowdown and a rise in inflation.