By Giulia Petroni, Farhan Rafid and Georgi Kantchev
DOHA, Qatar -- A blast tore through Qatar's key natural gas facility, leaving 13 dead and injuring dozens, rattling one of the world's most important gas exporters as it tries to restore shipments disrupted by the Iran war.
Qatari authorities attributed the Sunday blast at the Ras Laffan industrial complex to a technical accident during operations to restart the facility rather than a hostile act. They said it posed no threat to public safety and didn't impact the country's ability to export gas.
State-owned operator QatarEnergy said the resulting fire was under control. The country's Interior Ministry said that in addition to the dead, 66 people were injured. The blast hit Ras Laffan's Barzan gas facility, which supplies Qatar's domestic market.
The incident comes at a delicate moment for Qatar, whose liquefied-natural-gas industry has been trying to move on from crisis footing and increase operations after fighting around the Strait of Hormuz snarled the movement of tankers through the Gulf.
Qatar, one of the world's top three LNG exporters before the war alongside the U.S. and Australia, halted production of the fuel early in the conflict following the closure of the strait and Iranian attacks on Ras Laffan. The attacks knocked out some 17% of the facility's capacity for up to five years.
Any delay to the broader operations at Ras Laffan, the world's largest liquefied-natural-gas export hub, would add another pressure point for global gas markets still adjusting to months of Middle East supply uncertainty. On Monday, European gas prices were little changed on the day.
"Given the reported scale of the explosion, further impact on operations or delay to the restart timeline cannot be ruled out," said Christoph Halser, senior analyst for Gas & LNG Research at consulting firm Rystad Energy.
Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, Qatar's minister of state for energy affairs, said Monday that the Barzan gas facility will be shut until the company assesses the damage.
"It will not affect anything regarding exports, it will not affect anything regarding our local requirements," he said.
Efforts to restore production at Ras Laffan unfold as U.S. and Iranian officials negotiate the terms of a peace agreement, with mediators saying the two sides agreed over the weekend on a road map to reach a final deal within 60 days.
While some Middle Eastern oil was able to bypass the Strait of Hormuz through overland pipelines, Qatari LNG lacked alternative exits. Liquefaction facilities, meanwhile, are highly specialized engineering megaprojects that take years to construct and longer to repair than conventional oil fields.
Dominating a sandy stretch of Qatar's northern coast, Ras Laffan is a sprawling industrial fortress of pipes, flare stacks and loading berths built around the world's largest artificial harbor.
The facility has long been the foundation of Qatar's wealth and geopolitical clout, turning the small Gulf state into a key supplier of gas to Asia and Europe. Qatar accounted for roughly a fifth of global LNG exports before the war disruptions and had plans to nearly double capacity to 142 million tons a year by 2030, though analysts expect the war damage to delay some of those plans.
The export halt is also weighing on the country's economy, with the International Monetary Fund forecasting that its gross domestic product will shrink by 8.6% in 2026, the worst contraction in the Gulf region.
The incident adds Ras Laffan to a grim history of deadly oil-and-gas accidents, including the 1988 Piper Alpha platform fire in the North Sea, which killed 167 workers and the 2005 BP Texas City refinery explosion, which killed 15 and injured 180.
Write to Giulia Petroni at giulia.petroni@wsj.com and Georgi Kantchev at georgi.kantchev@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 22, 2026 10:42 ET (14:42 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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