Doha’s QatarEnergy expects the damage to its Ras Laffan Industrial City caused by missile strikes, which occurred on Wednesday, March 18, and in the early hours of Thursday, March 19, to cost about $20bln a year in lost revenue and to take up to five years to repair, impacting supply to markets in Europe and Asia.

Providing an update on the damage to the facilities at Ras Laffan Industrial City, Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, the minister of state for energy affairs, the president and CEO of QatarEnergy, said “I am relieved to confirm that no one was injured by these unjustified and senseless attacks, which weren’t just an attack on the State of Qatar but attacks on global energy security and stability. This was an attack on all of us who stand for development and human progress that is sustained by a fair, reliable, and secure access to energy.”

The company claims the recent attacks damaged two liquefied natural gas (LNG) producing Trains 4 and 6 totaling 12.8 million tons per annum (MTPA) of production, representing approximately 17% of Qatar’s exports. Train 4 is a joint venture between QatarEnergy (66%) and ExxonMobil (34%), and Train 6 is a joint venture between QatarEnergy (70%) and ExxonMobil (30%).

Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi has explained that the damage sustained by the LNG facilities will take between three to five years to repair. 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,” said Al-Kaabi.

In accordance with QatarEnergy, the attacks also targeted the Pearl GTL (Gas-to-Liquids) facility, a production sharing agreement operated by Shell, that converts natural gas into high-quality cleaner burning drop-in fuels and produces base oils used to make premium engine oils and lubricants, and 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” emphasized Al-Kaabi. 

The firm underscores that there will be a loss of associated product production due to the outage, encompassing condensates of 18.6 million barrels (around 24% of Qatar’s exports), LPG of 1.281 MT (around 13% of Qatar’s exports), Naphtha of 0.594 MT (around 6% of Qatar’s exports), Sulfur of 0.18 MT (around 6% of Qatar’s exports), and Helium of 309.54 MCFA (around 14% of Qatar’s exports).

Al-Kaabi also paid tribute to the Qatari military and security forces and to the energy sector emergency response teams whose courage and extraordinary professionalism, as he said, ensured the situation was contained quickly and safely.