Newswire — QatarEnergy has declared force majeure on some of its long-term liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply contracts, including for customers in Italy, Belgium, South Korea and China.
The move on Tuesday comes amid production and supply disruptions caused by the United States-Israeli war on Iran.
Force majeure is a clause in contracts that allows a party to be excused from its obligations due to unforeseeable events. Petroleum companies in Kuwait and Bahrain have also recently invoked force majeure.
Global energy markets have been reeling since the US and Israel began attacking Iran on February 28.
Iranian missile and drone strikes across the Middle East, including most notably in the Gulf region, have targeted oil and gas facilities, prompting international condemnation.
Iran has also essentially closed the Strait of Hormuz, a critical Gulf waterway through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil and LNG supplies transit.
The attacks and the closure of the strait have spurred mounting concern as energy prices have soared.
Last week, QatarEnergy CEO Saad al-Kaa said an Iranian attack on Qatar’s Ras Laffan gas facility wiped out about 17 percent of the country’s LNG export capacity, causing an estimated $20bn in lost annual revenue and threatening supplies to Europe and Asia.
Saad al-Kaabi told the Reuters news agency that two of Qatar’s 14 LNG trains, the equipment used to liquefy natural gas, and one of its two gas-to-liquids facilities were damaged in Iranian attacks.
The repairs will sideline 12.8 million tonnes of LNG production per year for three to five years, he said.
The Iranian attack on Ras Laffan came after the Israeli military targeted Iran’s offshore South Pars gasfield, the largest in the world, located off the coast of the country’s southern Bushehr province.
Majed al-Ansari, spokesperson for Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, had condemned Israel for targeting South Pars, noting that the Iranian gasfield is an extension of Qatar’s North Field.
The attack marked “a dangerous & irresponsible step amid the current military escalation in the region”, al-Ansari said in a statement. “Targeting energy infrastructure constitutes a threat to global energy security, as well as to the peoples of the region & its environment”.
Qatar and other Gulf countries have also condemned Iran’s continued attacks on energy infrastructure across the region, stressing that the strikes violate international law and the United Nations Charter.
