Those losses have implications ranging from LPG used in restaurants in India to South Korea’s chipmakers, which use helium.
The Iranian strikes on its Gulf neighbours have disrupted about 17 per cent of Qatar’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) export capacity, causing an estimated $20 billion in lost annual revenue, Saad al-Kaabi, QatarEnergy’s CEO and state minister for energy affairs, said.
According to al-Kaabi, the repairs will sideline 12.8 million tonnes per year of LNG for three to five years, threatening supplies to European and Asian nations, including China and India.
At least two of Qatar’s 14 LNG trains and one of its two gas-to-liquids (GTL) facilities were damaged in the unprecedented Iranian strikes over the past few days.
“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 Ramadan, attacking us in this way,” al-Kaabi told news agency Reuters.
The state-owned QatarEnergy has said that it 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.
“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,” al-Kaabi said.
Attack On World’s largest LNG Plant
Iran has aimed a series of attacks at Gulf oil and gas facilities after Israeli attacks on its own gas infrastructure. On Wednesday, the turmoil intensified following an Iranian missile attack on Ras Laffan, Qatar’s largest LNG plant, following which QatarEnergy had to declare force majeure on its entire output of LNG.
“For production to restart, first we need hostilities to cease,” al-Kaabi told Reuters.
He said the scale of the damage from the attacks has set the region back 10 to 20 years. “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.”
According to the minister, US oil major ExxonMobilis 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 per cent stake in LNG train S4 and a 30 per cent stake in train S6. 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.
Fallout Extends Beyond LNG
The initial estimates show that due to damages incurred during strikes, Qatar’s exports of condensate will drop by around 24 per cent, while LPG will fall 13 per cent. Helium output will fall 14 per cent, and naphtha and sulphur will both drop by 6 per cent.
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, al-Kaabi said.
India reportedly imports roughly 20 per cent of its natural gas requirements from Qatar.
He noted that no work is currently taking place on Qatar’s massive North Field expansion project, which could be delayed for more than a year.
