Explosion at Qatar's Ras Laffan LNG Complex Kills 13, Injures 66 During Facility Restart
A blast at the Barzan gas facility inside Qatar's Ras Laffan industrial city — the world's largest LNG export hub — killed 13 workers, 12 of them Indian nationals, and injured 66 others during a restart two days after operations resumed following months of shutdown triggered by Iranian strikes.
Fire and shock at the world's largest LNG hub
An explosion tore through Qatar's Ras Laffan Industrial City on the night of Sunday, June 22, killing 13 workers and injuring 66 others.bbc The blast, centred on the Barzan local gas supply facility, rattled windows across central Doha — more than 70 km away — and turned the skyline orange.bbc Qatar's Energy Minister Saad al-Kaabi confirmed the death toll at a press conference Monday, describing it as "the tragic loss of 13 lives of our people who hold Indian and Pakistani nationalities."ndtv
Twelve of the 13 dead were Indian nationals, the Indian Embassy in Doha confirmed after receiving notification from Qatari authorities.ndtv External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar expressed grief over the deaths, and India's Ministry of External Affairs said it was in contact with Qatari officials to facilitate the return of the victims' remains.ndtv Qatar's Amir also called Prime Minister Narendra Modi to convey condolences.ndtv
A restart gone wrong — weeks after Iranian strikes
The accident came at a fraught moment for the facility. The Barzan plant had been shut since December 2025 for urgent maintenance and then suffered "extensive damage" when Iranian missiles struck Ras Laffan in March 2026.bbc +1 Workers had only restarted operations two days before the explosion.aljazeera Al-Kaabi attributed the blast to a "technical malfunction" and was unequivocal that it was "an accident and not sabotage or hostile in nature."aljazeera
QatarEnergy deployed emergency response teams immediately and brought the fire under control, though the company did not disclose where inside the complex the explosion occurred or the full extent of structural damage.ndtv An investigation has been launched, and al-Kaabi said it would be difficult to determine a timeline for resuming Barzan's operations.bbc
Global energy markets watching closely
Ras Laffan Industrial City, about 80 km north of Doha, is home to the world's largest LNG export complex and produces roughly one-fifth of global LNG supply.aljazeera The Barzan facility itself has a capacity of nearly 1.4 billion standard cubic feet of sales gas per day, primarily supplying Qatar's domestic electricity generation and water desalination networks.ndtv
Despite the severity of the blast, al-Kaabi sought to reassure international buyers: "This will not affect in any way our exports to the world."ndtv Qatar's LNG export operations and port were confirmed unaffected.aljazeera +1 The facility had already been navigating a delicate recovery from the Iran-war strikes that had paused a fifth of global LNG supply earlier this year; the explosion throws fresh uncertainty over the timeline of that recovery.bbc