An explosion and fire occurred at the Barzan local gas supply facility within Qatar's Ras Laffan industrial complex on Sunday. This incident, attributed to a malfunction during startup, resulted in 54 individuals injured and 18 missing. Later reports from Energy Minister Saad Sherida al-Kaabi, however, confirmed 13 fatalities.
The Barzan plant, which is primarily owned by Qatar and partially by ExxonMobil, has a capacity of nearly 1.4 billion standard cubic feet of sales gas per day. This gas is critical for Qatar's domestic electricity generation and water desalination. The incident at Barzan does not affect Qatar's liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facilities, which are separate from this domestic gas supply plant. Despite this, the Ras Laffan industrial area had previously sustained significant damage from an Iranian missile attack in March, leading state firm QatarEnergy to declare force majeure on some LNG contracts and curtail production.
Qatar is actively working to restore its LNG exports, which account for about one-fifth of global supply. The country has been recalling empty LNG tankers, with three owned by Qatar's state-owned shipping arm nearing the Strait of Hormuz, and an additional five vessels linked to the emirate near eastern Oman. QatarEnergy anticipates restoring 50% of its production capacity within a month and 80% within two months, provided that tanker traffic returns to pre-war levels. However, the overall damage to the Ras Laffan LNG complex from earlier Iranian strikes is estimated to cost $20 billion per year in lost revenue and could take up to five years to repair.
