QatarEnergy will have to declare force majeure on long-term contracts for up to five years for LNG supplies
A hydrocarbon facility in Qatar. PHOTO: oilandgasmiddleeast.com
Iranian attacks have knocked out 17% 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.
QatarEnergy CEO Saad Al-Kaabi reports $20B in annual revenue loss after attacks hit LNG units. Exports to drop by 12.8M tons/year, potentially triggering Force Majeure for Italy, China, and Korea. ExxonMobil remains a key partner in affected sites.#QatarEnergy #LNG #Energy… pic.twitter.com/r7KXdJ690j
— What's Goin On Qatar (@wgoqatar) March 19, 2026
"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.
Hours earlier, Iran had aimed a series of attacks at Gulf oil and gas facilities after Israeli attacks on its own gas infrastructure.
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 output of LNG, 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 said.
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% stake in LNG train S4 and a 30% 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.
The scale of the damage from the attacks has set the region back 10 to 20 years, he 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."
QatarEnergy Statement on Missile Attacks on its LNG Facilities
In addition to the previous attack on Ras Laffan Industrial City on Wednesday 18 March 2026 that resulted in extensive damage to the Pearl GTL (Gas-to-Liquids) facility, QatarEnergy confirms that in the early hours…
— QatarEnergy (@qatarenergy) March 19, 2026
The fallout extends well beyond LNG. Qatar's exports of condensate will drop by around 24%, while liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) will fall 13%. Helium output will fall 14%, and naphtha and sulphur will both drop by 6%.
Read More: What are the key energy sites under fire in the Middle East?
Those losses have implications ranging from LPG used in restaurants in India to South Korea's chipmakers, which use helium.
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.
"If Israel attacked Iran, it's between Iran and Israel. It has nothing to do with us and the region," he 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."
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