27 Apr 2021 - 8:03 Dr. Hanan Farhat during her research work. The Peninsula Doha: In less than one year since its opening, the Corrosion Center at Qatar Environment & Energy Research Institute is estimated to have saved Qatar’s oil and gas industry millions of US dollars. But this doesn’t feel so big when you look at Qatar’s annual cost of corrosion – estimated at a whopping US $8 billion (National Association of Corrosion Engineering, NACE IMPACT study, 2016), which is approximately five percent of its annual gross domestic product. “Corrosion costs in Qatar are very high,” said Dr. Hanan Farhat, Senior Research Director of the Corrosion Center at Qatar Environment & Energy Research Institute (QEERI), part of Qatar Foundation’s Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU). “A major contributor towards these costs is the underestimation of corrosion phenomena and their impact on businesses – the business interruptions caused due to equipment failure can add up.