According to state-owned company QatarEnergy, Iranian missile attacks have reduced Qatar’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) export capacity by 17%.
“The severe damage to our production facilities will take up to five years to repair,” the company also said in a post on Thursday, adding that supply to markets in Europe and Asia would be affected as a result.
Iran attacked QatarEnergy’s Ras Laffan LNG plant, the world’s largest, on Wednesday in retaliation for Israel’s earlier attack on its South Pars gas field.
Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, Qatar’s Minister of State for Energy Affairs and President and CEO of QatarEnergy, stated in publication
Al-Kaabi stated that exports to China, South Korea, Italy and Belgium would be affected. “We will be forced to declare force majeure for up to five years on some long-term LNG contracts,” he added.
Force majeure is a legal term that refers to unforeseen circumstances that prevent a company from fulfilling a contract.
QatarEnergy’s exports, which account for almost a fifth of global LNG supply, were already trapped by the near-blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, and all production had been halted on March 2 following an earlier attack.
Even before the latest strikes, countries in Asia and Europe, which rely on natural gas imports, were rushing to respond to a sharp rise in LNG prices this month, which has raised the costs of generating electricity, heating homes and making fertilizers.
Hanna Ziady contributed to this report.
