QatarEnergy has announced a major power surge after Iran’s attack on the Ras Laffan area
FOX Business’ Stuart Varney examines the growing global energy challenge fueled by conflicts in the Middle East and examines the potential long-term economic and political consequences for the American consumer.
Iranian strikes have reduced Doha’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) export capacity by about 17%, QatarEnergy’s CEO said. he told Reuters in an interview on Thursday.
Saad al-Kaabi said the disruption could lead to the loss of an estimated 20 billion dollars and threaten supplies in Europe and Asia.
The CEO of the state-owned energy company, who is also Qatar’s minister of energy affairs, told Reuters that damage to two LNG trains and one of its two gas-to-liquids facilities would set aside about 12.8 million tons of annual production for three to five years.
“Never in my wildest dreams did I think that Qatar would be – Qatar and the region – in such an attack, especially in a country that is a Muslim brotherhood in the month of Ramadan, attacked us in this way,” said al-Kaabi.
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Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, Qatar’s minister of state for energy affairs and CEO of QatarEnergy, speaks during the LNG2026 conference at the Qatar National Convention Center in Doha on Feb. 2, 2026. (Photos by Nushad Variyattiyakkal/SOPA/LightRocket via Getty Images / Getty Images)
The attack came after Iran targeted energy infrastructure in the Gulf in retaliation for Israel’s strike on South Pars gas on Wednesday.
QatarEnergy said in several papers on X that the attack of missiles and rockets on its facilities in Ras Laffan Industrial City caused fires and major damage but there were no injuries.
Qatar is one of the world’s largest LNG exporters, accounting for about 20% of global supply, according to US Energy Information Administration.
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Qatar Energy facilities in Mesaieed Industrial City, south of Doha, on March 4, 2026, after the company announced the shutdown of LNG production following an Iranian attack on energy installations. (Stringer/Getty/Getty Images)
President Donald Trump said on his Truth Social forum that Israel will stop further strikes on Iran’s South Pars gas field unless Tehran escalates, warning that the United States could respond with greater force if Qatar’s LNG facilities are targeted again.
“The United States of America, with or without Israel’s permission, will massively detonate the entire South Pars Gas Field with a force and power that Iran has never seen or seen before,” Trump wrote. “I do not want to authorize this level of violence and destruction because of the long-term consequences it will have on the future of Iran, but if Qatar’s LNG is attacked again, I will not hesitate to do so.”
Al-Kaabi told Reuters QatarEnergy declared a maximum capacity for all its LNG exports following the attack on Ras Laffan, allowing it to suspend deliveries due to the damage.
“For production to resume, first we need the fighting to end,” he said.
Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, president and CEO of Qatar Petroleum and chairman of Qatar Gas, attends the 109th meeting of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries in Kuwait City on December 12, 2022. (Yasser Al-Zayyat/AFP via Getty Images/Getty Images)
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He also explained that the state-owned company will have to announce a large capacity of long-term contracts up to five years covering goods to Italy, Belgium, South Korea and China due to the damage of two LNG trains.
“If Israel attacks Iran, it is between Iran and Israel. It has nothing to do with us or the region,” al-Kaabi told Reuters. “And now, in addition, I say 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 resources.”
