An explosion at Qatar's natural gas supply plant in Ras Laffan Industrial City has resulted in 13 deaths. The minister confirmed the incident was an accident, not an attack.
Foreign news agencies reported on 22 June 2026 that an explosion at the Barzan natural gas plant in Ras Laffan Industrial City on Sunday night has caused at least 13 fatalities and injured 66 others.
Ras Laffan is the world's largest artificial port and hosts the largest LNG processing and export facilities globally. Earlier this year, the port was targeted in attacks by Iran.
However, Qatari authorities stated that the explosion resulted from a "technical accident." Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, Qatar's Minister of Energy, affirmed that the blast would not affect the country's exports and emphasized, "This was an accident, not sabotage or an enemy attack."
The blast on Sunday caused windows to shake and vibrations were felt as far as the center of Doha, over 70 kilometers away, causing public alarm.
Al-Kaabi added that the government is urgently investigating the cause of the explosion at the Barzan plant and admitted it is difficult to estimate when operations will resume.
"Production was fully suspended since December 2025 due to urgent maintenance and only restarted two days ago," Al-Kaabi said, confirming all those killed were Indian and Pakistani nationals.
Preliminary reports indicate the explosion occurred as workers were restarting systems at Ras Laffan Industrial City after a suspension in March caused by heavy damage from Iranian attacks.
QatarEnergy, the Qatari state energy company, stated that repairs will reduce LNG production capacity by about 12.8 million tons for 3 to 5 years.
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Source:bbc