DOHA — Iranian attacks have knocked out 17 percent of Qatar’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) export capacity, causing an estimated $20 billion in lost annual revenue and threatening supplies to Europe and Asia, QatarEnergy’s CEO and state minister for energy affairs told Reuters on Thursday.
Saad al-Kaabi said two of Qatar’s 14 LNG trains and one of its two gas-to-liquids (GTL) facilities were damaged in the unprecedented strikes. The repairs will sideline 12.8 million tonnes per year of LNG for three to five years, he said in an interview.
“I never in my wildest dreams would have thought that Qatar would be—Qatar and the region—in such an attack, especially from a brotherly Muslim country in the month of Ramazan, attacking us in this way,” Kaabi said.
Escalating Conflict
Hours earlier, Iran had aimed a series of attacks at Gulf oil and gas facilities after Israeli attacks on its own gas infrastructure. The strikes mark a significant escalation in the regional conflict, directly targeting energy infrastructure critical to global supplies.
Force Majeure Declared
State-owned QatarEnergy will have to declare force majeure on long-term contracts for up to five years for LNG supplies bound for Italy, Belgium, South Korea, and China due to the two damaged trains, Kaabi said.
“I mean, these are long-term contracts that we have to declare force majeure. We already declared, but that was a shorter term. Now it’s whatever the period is,” he said.
QatarEnergy had declared force majeure on its entire LNG output after earlier attacks on its Ras Laffan production hub, which came under fire again on Wednesday.
“For production to restart, first we need hostilities to cease,” he emphasized.
Partner Impact
US oil major ExxonMobil is a partner in the damaged LNG facilities, while Shell is a partner in the damaged GTL facility, which will take up to a year to repair.
Texas-based ExxonMobil holds a 34 percent stake in LNG train S4 and a 30 percent stake in train S6, Kaabi said. Train S4 impacts supplies to Italy’s Edison and EDFT in Belgium, while Train S6 impacts South Korea’s KOGAS, EDFT, and Shell in China.
Regional Setback
The scale of the damage from the attacks has set the region back 10 to 20 years, Kaabi said.
“And of course, this is a safe haven for a lot of people, to have a safe place to stay and so on. And that image, I think, has been shaken.”
Broader Commodity Impact
The fallout extends well beyond LNG. Qatar’s exports of condensate will drop by around 24 percent, while liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) will fall 13 percent. Helium output will fall 14 percent, and naphtha and sulphur will both drop by 6 percent.
Those losses have implications ranging from LPG used in restaurants in India to South Korea’s chipmakers, which rely on helium for semiconductor manufacturing.
Financial Toll
The damaged units cost approximately $26 billion to build, Kaabi said. No work is currently taking place on Qatar’s massive North Field expansion project, which could be delayed for more than a year, he said.
Appeal for Restraint
“If Israel attacked Iran, it’s between Iran and Israel. It has nothing to do with us and the region,” Kaabi said.
“And so now, in addition to that, I’m saying that everybody in the world, whether it’s Israel, whether it’s the US, whether it’s any other country, everybody should stay away from oil and gas facilities.”
Global Implications
Qatar is one of the world’s largest LNG exporters, and prolonged outages at its facilities will have significant implications for global energy markets, particularly in Europe and Asia, where Qatari gas plays a crucial role in meeting demand. The attacks represent one of the most serious direct hits on global energy infrastructure in decades.
