Qatar is the world's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG), which is gas chilled to liquid form for export on specially designed tankers.
The Gulf Arab state has named Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa Al-Thani as the new head of Qatargas, replacing Faisal Al-Suwaidi, the office of Energy Minister Abdullah Al-Attiyah said.
The office declined to give further details on the reasons for the change.
Sheikh Khalid was previously director of Ras Laffan Industrial City, home to much of Qatar's gas infrastructure including all of its LNG production facilities and run by state energy giant Qatar Petroleum.
Suwaidi took the helm of Qatargas in 1997, just a year after the company and country started exporting LNG. He has overseen a growth in capacity to 25.2 million tons per year from around 9.6 million tpy.
Qatargas is set to start two more giant LNG trains this year, each with capacity of 7.8 million tpy, to take capacity to near 41 million tpy.
The projects would complete the country's capacity expansion to 77 million tpy from 54 million tpy at the end of last year.
RasGas holds the rest of Qatar's LNG capacity. Both firms are majority owned by Qatar Petroleum. International energy firms own minority stakes in each production facility, known as LNG trains.
