QatarEnergy is ready to resume liquefied natural gas production at its Ras Laffan LNG plant very quickly and could reach within a month full output of facilities unaffected by Iranian strikes, a person with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Tuesday. Two of Qatar’s 14 LNG trains and one of its two gas-to-liquids (GTL) facilities were damaged in the strikes, which knocked out 17% of the country’s LNG export capacity, and will take years to repair, the group’s CEO told Reuters in March. However, production at other facilities, idled because of the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz oil and LNG export gateway for the region during the Iran war, could be quickly restored, the source said. “The problem will be how fast can we bring ships in and how fast we can load them after the strait opens,” the person, who declined to be named, told Reuters. “It’s more of a shipping and logistics problem than production.” Despite a framework agreement between the U.S. and Iran on terms to end their war and reopen Hormuz, a little more than a dozen LNG tankers have managed to exit the strait since the war began in late February.
Shippers are awaiting reassurance on safety to cross the strait, including the clearing of mines, which could delay a return to normal shipping traffic by weeks.
(Reporting by Maha El Dahan in Dubai; writing by Marwa Rashad Editing by Tomasz Janowski)