The world’s LNG supply outlook darkened sharply last night after Iran struck key gas infrastructure in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, escalating the regional conflict and raising the prospect of prolonged disruption to one of the market’s most critical production hubs.

In retaliation for attacks on its South Pars gas field, Iran targeted major energy sites across the region. Fires at Qatar’s Ras Laffan industrial city caused extensive damage, QatarEnergy said, including the Shell-operated Pearl gas to liquid plant. Two vessels were also hit in the strikes.

Missiles also targeted Saudi Arabia’s SAMREF refinery near the Red Sea city of Yanbu. Saudi Arabia was piping oil west and exporting it via Yanbu to bypass the Strait of Hormuz, though that diversion may now be under threat.

A drone attack on Kuwait’s Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery also resulted in a fire but caused no injuries, the state-run Kuwait News Agency confirmed.

David Hewitt, consultant at Hewitt Energy Perspectives, called the attacks on South Pars and Ras Laffan “long jumps over respective red lines”.

“Let’s hope wise heads prevail, and soon.”

UKMTO reported that a vessel was hit by an unknown projectile at 2300 hrs on March 18 11 nautical miles east of Khor Fakkan, resulting in a fire on board.

Lloyd’s List understands this vessel to be the Palau-flagged, 12,887 dwt chemical tanker Parimal (IMO: 9308766), which is also on Lloyd’s List’s shadow fleet* watchlist.

The vessel’s crew abandoned ship and were rescued by a Cook Islands-flagged tanker in the anchorage area. Parimal’s master remains unaccounted for, however.

Lloyd’s List senior risk and compliance analyst Bridget Diakun said Parimal “has a history of manipulating its AIS data while operating in the Middle East, suggesting it partakes in the lifting or transhipment of Iranian oil”.

“The fact that shadow fleet vessels are being damaged as a result of the conflict is a reminder that no ships are truly ‘safe’ while operating in the region.”

Also hit in last night’s attacks was the Qatar-flagged tug Halul69 (IMO: 9671577), which was hit by falling debris from an intercepted drone at around 0130 hrs on March 19. The incident resulted in damage to a bridge window, but no structural damage was reported and all crew have been accounted for.

The ramifications of the overnight attacks on the energy sector could be significant. Initial expectations of a two-month disruption are likely to be exceeded, energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie said.

Head of LNG strategy and market development, Kristy Kramer, said “market expectations had been for a short disruption, with a controlled restart restoring supply to pre-conflict levels by mid-2026”.

“That outlook now appears increasingly unlikely. A more prolonged outage would further tighten the global supply and keep prices elevated for longer,” she said.

Vortexa senior LNG analyst, Ashley Sherman, agreed.

“Until now, it feels like the market had been under-pricing how long it would take, after the conflict [and Hormuz disruption] ends, for Qatar LNG supply to ramp back to normal levels. That is almost certainly going to take longer now, with knock-on effects to the expansion schedule too,” he said.

“Past global examples suggest that, if there is confirmed damage, it could take months to repair. And that’s before accounting for the challenges of supply chain management in a conflict zone, with a significantly demobilised headcount.

Qatari LNG production has been halted since March 2, removing an estimated 80m tonnes per annum from the market, or around 19% of global LNG supply, Wood Mackenzie said.

The North Field East expansion, which was expected to begin operations at the end of this year, will add 23m tonnes per annum. That start date is now looking unlikely.

According to Fearnleys, roughly a quarter of all liquefaction capacity under construction is located in Qatar.

A quick resumption of LNG volumes out of Qatar now looks unlikely. Even before the attacks on Ras Laffan, Wood Mackenzie forecasted that a ramp-up of Qatari LNG would take four to six weeks. Depending on the level of damage, that timeline is likely to be extended.

Senior gas shipping analyst at Maritime Strategies International, Andrew Buckland, said these most recent attacks actually wouldn’t make much difference to LNG supply in the short term, given that QatarEnergy had already declared force majeure earlier this month and halted production.

The key will be the extent of the damage at Ras Laffan, he said. Depending on the damage, Buckland said the market could be looking at years, not months, before the site gets back to full capacity.

Hewitt said too many would focus on the short and even medium term.

“I am more interested in the long-term damage that may well have been done to LNG supply that has to transverse geopolitical chokepoints going forward,” he told Lloyd’s List.

QatarEnergy’s chief executive, Saad al-Kaabi, told Reuters that two of its 14 LNG trains and two gas to liquid units had been destroyed, equating to 17% of Qatar’s LNG export capacity. The repairs will take nearly 13m tonnes per year off the table while they are made.

Prior to the conflict, Wood Mackenzie expected global LNG supply to grow by 35m tonnes in 2026. If Qatari volumes are disrupted for five to six months, global supply would likely be pushed into annual decline.

That’s not good news for a sector already grappling with an oversupply of tonnage.

Fearnleys LNG analyst Ina Bjørkum Arneson highlighted the huge numbers of LNG carriers on order, especially by Qatar.

Lloyd’s List Intelligence data shows nearly 400 LNG carrier newbuildings are on order, which means the current orderbook is around 50% of the global fleet.

Qatar itself has 128 newbuildings on offer, Arneson said, with more than 40 expected to be delivered over the next two years.

Charter rates for LNG carriers suffered greatly towards the end of 2024, and while 2025 represented a recovery of sorts, there were still too many vessels looking for too few cargoes.

If Qatari volumes remain offline for an extended period, Fearnleys expects Qatar‑owned newbuildings to lose their employment base and be pushed into the spot market.

Sherman said the “appetite of QatarEnergy to sub-charter further idle vessels from its growing fleet will be a telling barometer of its own expectations on the likely restart timeline”.

But for a market that Fearnleys described as in “clear oversupply”, the imbalance is only likely to get worse.

“Higher cargo values are typically supportive for shipping, but in this case the tonnage dynamic dominates — more ships chasing fewer cargoes points to continued pressure on rates,” Fearnleys said.

The impact on shipping could be mitigated by more long-haul LNG trade from the Atlantic Basin to Asia, MSI’s Buckland said, which would increase average voyage lengths.

“But this won’t be enough to make up for the loss in shipping demand that no, or reduced, Qatari exports will cause,” he said.

On Thursday afternoon, the International Maritime Organization was on the cusp of agreeing a formal declaration condemning Iran’s attacks on shipping and calling for all countries to ensure freedom of navigation.

States broadly agreed on the importance of keeping seafarers safe and supplied, and of allowing transport of humanitarian supplies to the region.

But the IMO has no power to force states to do something if they don’t want to. Scant detail has been offered so far on how an official “safe shipping corridor” would work after two days of emergency talks at the IMO Council.

Iran distanced itself from the proposed legal document being hashed out, calling the draft text “one-sided, unfair, inaccurate and legally deficient”.

It said the text ignored the root cause of the conflict, politicised the IMO and would not improve the safety of shipping anyway.