This article was updated on March 26th at 4:45 p.m.
PMr. Trump, a resident, Lately, he has seemed desperate to escape the war he started, emphasizing progress in negotiations that may or may not reflect reality, and declaring that “this war has been won” despite ample evidence to the contrary. Last week’s Iranian missile attack on Qatar’s main natural gas facility may help explain his page-turning stance. The attack was carried out in retaliation for Israel’s attack on the Iranian portion of a large natural gas field spread across Iranian and Qatari territory, and was more of a warning shot than a full-scale attack. But the impact on Qatar’s economy and global energy markets was significant, providing a glimpse of the catastrophe that could ensue following Iran’s wide-ranging military operations against energy facilities across the Persian Gulf.
Damage to the Ras Laffan industrial facility, about 80 miles from the center of Qatar’s capital Doha, has reduced the country’s liquefied natural gas export capacity by 17% and is expected to cost it $20 billion in annual revenue. Qatar’s Ministry of Energy says repairs will take three to five years. From the discovery of offshore natural gas fields to its first shipment of energy, the country has spent more than a quarter of a century becoming the world’s third-largest LNG exporter and one of the wealthiest countries on the planet. It took overnight to prove that Iran could derail the entire business and jeopardize Qatar’s future.
Qatar’s state-run energy company declared force majeure against customers in Italy, Belgium, South Korea and China, meaning it was unable to fulfill its contractual obligations due to circumstances beyond its control. Qatar had already suspended LNG production immediately after the war began, the first time in its history that this had happened. This resulted in the loss of approximately one-fifth of the world’s LNG supply. If the shutdown lasts for a long time, it could lead to major turmoil as Qatar’s economic growth was based on the expansion of its own gas fields. The pain will not end for Qatar. If LNG facilities are shut down for the rest of this year, global supplies will effectively return to 2021 levels, according to Columbia University’s Center for Global Energy Policy.
President Trump began posting on Truth Social shortly after the Ras Laffan attack, claiming that the United States knew nothing about the first attack on Israel. (Israeli officials said in press reports that this was not the case.) Israel would call off the attack, he said. However, if Iran attacks facilities in Qatar again, President Trump has promised to “blow up” the Iranian side of the gas field. He threatened on Saturday to attack Iran’s power plants if it did not reopen the Strait of Hormuz by Monday night. This ultimatum caused oil prices, which were already soaring, to rise further, and after the ensuing market panic, President Trump announced a five-day moratorium based on the talks, which he claimed were yielding results, but Iran did not even claim that.
President Trump’s flagrant public comments and social media posts caused chaos throughout the war. But this much is clear. Despite losing everything, Iran maintains the military capability to cause a global energy crisis. The Ras Laffan attack provided clear evidence, even if Trump didn’t know it before.
a a few days later With the attack on Ras Laffan, International Energy Agency Director-General Fatih Birol broke the silence he had maintained since the start of the war. Birol warned at an event in Australia on Monday that the global economy now faces a “big, big threat” from disruptions to oil and gas flows. He noted that more than 40 energy facilities in nine countries have already been severely damaged, and even if the war ends this week, it could take months or years for supplies to return to pre-war levels. Birol compared the loss of oil supplies due to the war to two major energy crises in the 1970s. Natural gas losses are comparable to the supply shock experienced after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, he added. “As it stands, this crisis is two oil crises and one gas crisis combined.”
Countries far from the Middle East are already feeling the acute pain of shortages. Sri Lanka, Pakistan and the Philippines have announced that civil servants will only work four days a week to save on electricity and petrol. In Thailand, where Qatar accounts for more than 40% of its LNG supplies, government officials have been told to stop traveling abroad and take stairs instead of elevators.
The attack on Qatar has implications beyond the energy market. The country is one of the world’s leading producers of urea, a key ingredient in fertilizers. With the northern hemisphere’s spring planting season underway and fertilizer not being shipped from the Gulf, a global food crisis could be on the horizon. Qatar also supplies one-third of the world’s helium, a byproduct of natural gas production and a key raw material in the manufacture of computer chips and medical imaging equipment. Shipments of its key elements have also been halted.
Qatar is used to domestic instability disrupting delicate supply chains and depressing profits. During the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, a tanker ship caught in crossfire sank to the bottom of the Persian Gulf, scaring away potential customers. After that, economic growth slowed due to the war. But the current war is destroying it.
Iorchid and katar connected by geology. Natural gas fields are by far the largest mineral deposits on Earth. Qatar’s territory is approximately 2,300 square miles, approximately half of the country’s total land area. Surprisingly, this sharing of natural resources is a big reason why Qatar has long maintained closer ties with Iran than with its neighbors. In 2017, four regional rivals imposed a land and air blockade of Qatar, citing the emir’s comments praising Iran as a great power. (Qatar officials claim the statement was fabricated through elaborate computer hacking. The country weathered political and economic isolation with the help of LNG exports, as shipping routes remained open.)
Now that Iran has attacked Qatar, the future of their relationship is in jeopardy and the rivals have found a new reason to unite. Three of the four countries that blockaded Qatar – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain – are also targets of Iranian drones and missiles. (A fourth, Egypt, is a long way from action.) After the Ras Laffan attack, Qatar expelled two senior Iranian diplomats and threatened more if Iranian military action continued.
“It will take a lot of effort to restore trust in relations with Iran,” Majid al-Ansari, an adviser to the Qatari prime minister and chief foreign ministry spokesperson, told me. Along with that, there will be a new focus on deterrence, he said. Going forward, Qatar is expected to spend more of its wealth on air defense, fighter jets, and other military equipment.
“We need to have very frank conversations with our security partners in the United States and Europe about how we re-establish this deterrence,” Al-Ansari said. This is probably a diplomatic way of communicating that Qatar needs protection and that it really needs the Americans and Israelis to stop giving Iran a reason to blow up its economy.
Qatar has focused much of its foreign policy on resolving the problems of other countries, acting as a mediator in wars, territorial disputes, and hostage negotiations. It is not participating in current diplomatic efforts to achieve a ceasefire between Iran and the United States. But Doha is putting pressure on both sides to find a way out.
“The longer the conflict continues, the more it will have a negative impact not only on the region but on all people,” Al-Ansari said. When we spoke, President Trump had not yet announced a moratorium on strikes against Iranian energy facilities, but he extended that deadline to April 6 in a post on Truth Social this afternoon. Then we will have a better idea of whether the crisis will end or get worse.
