MINERALS and petroleum group Sasol has raised its stake from 34% to 49% in the $780-million gas-to-liquids project with Qatar General Petroleum Corp. Sasol took up the 15% stake surrendered by US oil company Phillips Petroleum, who dropped out of the Middle East’s first GTL project to focus on its other ventures in the Gulf emirate. The state-owned QGPC will have a 51% stake in the project based at a Ras Laffan Industrial City factory that converts natural gas into liquid petroleum products for export to Asia and Europe. Qatar, a country of just 522000 people, four-fifths of whom are expatriates, sits on top of the world’s third largest gas reserves after Russia and Iran.