QatarEnergy expects 3-5 years to repair LNG facilities after strikes

QatarEnergy expects damage from recent Iranian missile strikes on its LNG facilities in Ras Laffan Industrial City will take three to five years to repair and compel the producer to declare force majeure on some long-term LNG contracts, with about 17% of the supplier's export capacity taken offline, CEO Saad al-Kaabi said in a March 19 statement.

Two of 14 LNG production units -- Trains 4 and 6 -- were damaged in the attacks, representing 12.8 million metric tons/year of capacity, QatarEnergy said. The exporter said it anticipated an annual revenue loss of about $20 billion as a result of the attacks on Ras Laffan March 18 and early March 19. It also said the outage would impact supplies to markets in Europe and Asia.

"The damage sustained by the LNG facilities will take between three to five years to repair," Kaabi said in a statement posted on X, formerly Twitter. "The impact is on China, South Korea, Italy and Belgium. This means that we will be compelled to declare force majeure for up to five years on some long-term LNG contracts."

The trains operated as joint ventures with ExxonMobil, which referred a March 19 request for comment to QatarEnergy.

QatarEnergy's LNG export facility is the largest in the world, delivering more than 80 million mt of LNG in 2025, according to S&P Global Energy CERA data.

The recent attacks also struck the Pearl GTL gas-to-liquids facility at Ras Laffan, which is operated by Shell under a production-sharing agreement and converts natural gas into products such as base oils used to make premium engine oils and lubricants, as well as paraffins and waxes.

"The damage caused to one of the two trains at Pearl GTL is being assessed and is expected to be offline for a minimum of one year," Kaabi said.

QatarEnergy said the Pearl GTL outage was expected to result in lost production of about 18.6 million barrels of condensates, nearly 1.3 million mt of LPGs, about 600,000 mt of naptha, nearly 200,000 mt of sulfur, and about 310 million cubic feet of helium.

Kaabi said in an earlier March 19 interview with Reuters that the impacts from the Middle East war could delay Qatar's North Field expansion project by over a year, according to the report.

Global LNG spot prices surged March 19 following news of the attacks and the damage to the Qatar facilities.

Platts, part of S&P Global Energy, assessed the May JKM benchmark price for spot LNG delivered into Northeast Asia at $25.412/million British thermal units March 19, an increase of nearly 33% from the previous assessment.

In the Atlantic Basin, Platts assessed the DES Northwest Europe for May at $20.728/MMBtu on March 19, an increase of about 15% from the previous assessment.

"I am pleased to confirm that no one was injured as a result of these reckless and unjustified attacks, which were not just an assault on the State of Qatar, but attacks on global energy security and stability," Kaabi said in the statement.