54 people were injured and 18 remained missing hours after an explosion and fire ripped through Qatar’s Ras Laffan complex during efforts to restart the Barzan gas facility Sunday night.
QatarEnergy said the blast erupted as workers resumed operations after Iran had bombed the terminal during the war and Qatar had halted production while the Strait of Hormuz was effectively choked off.
The scale of damage is still unclear, but the Barzan plant can supply nearly 1.4 billion standard cubic feet of gas a day for electricity generation and water desalination, making the outage critical at home as well as for exports.
The incident threatens fresh disruption to global energy markets just as Iran was loosening its grip on the strait and negotiations were continuing over a permanent end to the war.