Explosion at world's largest LNG hub kills 13 during restart after Iran attack

An explosion at Qatar's Ras Laffan Industrial City — the world's largest liquefied natural gas hub — killed 13 people and injured 66 others during restart operations following an Iranian attack that had forced the facility to shut down.

Qatar's Energy Minister Saad al-Kaabi held a news conference Monday and said 13 workers of Indian and Pakistani nationality had died in the blast. "Sixty-six people were injured and are receiving medical care, but none are in a life-threatening condition," he said, according to AP and other international media.

State energy company QatarEnergy said the explosion and fire broke out at the Barzan gas supply facility inside Ras Laffan while workers were restarting an export terminal. Al-Kaabi said the incident was "a simple accident — not sabotage or any hostile act."

The accident occurred as the facility was being brought back online after Iranian drone strikes had forced it to halt operations.

In late February, the Ras Laffan complex suffered severe damage from Iranian drone strikes during the US-Iran war and was forced to shut down. QatarEnergy declared force majeure, saying the attack had cut its total LNG export capacity by 17 percent and that repairing the damaged facilities would take three to five years.

Spanning 295 square kilometers, Ras Laffan is the world's largest LNG hub, liquefying gas produced from nearby offshore fields and shipping it around the globe. It accounts for roughly 20 percent of global LNG supply, with 90 percent of that output destined for Asian markets. The Barzan plant, where the explosion occurred, can produce about 1.4 billion standard cubic feet of sales gas per day — enough to power more than 1 million mid-size cars simultaneously for an entire month.

Al-Kaabi said Qatar holds sufficient gas for domestic use and that the accident "will not affect gas exports to the rest of the world in any way."

South Korea is directly exposed to the disruption. According to Korea International Trade Association data, South Korea imported 6.97 million tons of LNG from Qatar last year, accounting for 14.9 percent of its total LNG imports of 46.72 million tons — making Qatar its third-largest LNG supplier after Australia (31.4 percent) and Malaysia (16.1 percent).

QatarEnergy had previously indicated, shortly after the Iranian attack, that it could invoke force majeure on long-term LNG supply contracts signed with South Korea, China, Italy and Belgium.

The latest explosion adds fresh uncertainty to global energy markets already rattled by the earlier Iranian strike, raising concerns about the timeline for restoring full output at the world's most critical LNG export hub.

밴스 美부통령 “IAEA 핵사찰단 이번주로 이란 복귀 합의”

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