By Admin 
Iran Attack on Ras Laffan: Iran’s attack on Ras Laffan, Qatar’s industrial city and the world’s largest LNG hub, could prove catastrophic for the world. Qatar’s Energy Minister Saad al-Kaabi says that Iran’s attack on Qatar’s gas facilities will cause huge damage to the export capacity of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) of the Middle East. This will cause loss of billions of dollars.
When did Iran attack?
Iran carried out its first attack on the night of 18 March. During this, five ballistic missiles were fired, which caused considerable damage to Pearl GTL. It is a plant that converts natural gas into liquid fuels like clean diesel and kerosene. In Iran’s recent missile attack, its pipeline network and storage tanks were targeted. Due to this the production came to a complete halt.
Iran carried out the second attack on March 19. In this, all the LNG facilities of Qatar were targeted. In this, two production units of Ras Laffan and a total of 14 LNG trans (gas liquefied units) were targeted. On this, QatarEnergy CEO Kaabi said, “Even in my nightmares, I never thought that Qatar and this entire region would be the victim of such an attack. Especially in the holy month of Ramadan, we would be attacked like this by a ‘brotherly’ Muslim country.” Kaabi said that these attacks have completely halted 17 percent of Qatar’s LNG export capacity. This could result in an estimated loss of $20 billion in annual revenue. He further said that these need to be repaired, due to which the production of 12.8 million tonnes of LNG will be disrupted for the next three to five years.
These countries will be affected
India- India imports a major part of its LNG needs, about 40-50 percent, from Qatar. Now if the supply decreases, then obviously the prices of CNG and PNG will increase in the country. Moreover, a large part of LPG comes from the processing of natural gas. In such a situation, if the price of crude oil and gas increases in the global market, it is likely to affect domestic and commercial LPG cylinders as well.
Pakistan and Bangladesh- These two neighboring countries of India are already facing energy crisis. In such a situation, due to less supply and further increase in prices in the global market, their economy will be further affected.
China, South Korea and Japan- These Asian countries also buy LNG on a large scale from Qatar. These will account for 90 percent of Qatar’s total LNG exports in the year 2025. In such a situation, in case of less supply, these countries will be forced to buy gas at expensive rates from the spot market.
European countries- Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, many European countries are largely dependent on Qatar for gas. Due to Iran’s attack on Ras Laffan, gas prices in Europe may rise by 30-35 percent.
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