suspended<\/a> LNG production following an attack on the Ras Laffan facility as well as on a water tank at a power plant in Mesaieed Industrial City.<\/p>\nThe Ras Laffan complex, located 80km (50 miles) northeast of Doha, is the world\u2019s largest LNG production facility and produces about 20 percent of the global LNG supply, playing a major role in balancing both Asian and European markets\u2019 demand for the fuel.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is what Qatar\u2019s wealth is built on,\u201d Al Jazeera\u2019s Victoria Gatenby said. \u201cWe\u2019ve also have had alerts here in Doha and the threat level has been raised.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rachel Ziemba, a senior fellow at the think tank Center for a New American Security, said the fact that Ras Laffan had already paused production meant there would be no new global supply shock in the near term.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it could put further pressure on regional power supplies,\u201d Ziemba told Al Jazeera. She added that it also \u201crisks prices staying high for longer\u201d.<\/p>\n
Babak Hafezi, professor of international business at American University, said rising LNG prices would affect European markets.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince the start of the Ukrainian war and the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines, the Germans and the [European Union] have become net importers of LNG,\u201d Hafezi told Al Jazeera. Other countries reliant on LNG include Japan, Turkiye and India.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe smaller countries with weaker economies in the Global South will be hurt the most, as LNG price increases will lead to demand destruction,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The attack on Ras Laffan comes as Saudi Arabia was scheduled to host a meeting of foreign ministers from Arab and Muslim-majority countries in Riyadh to discuss finding an off-ramp from this conflict.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe focus of this meeting now will very much be on the threats they are facing from Iran and dealing with the aftermath of those attacks,\u201d Al Jazeera\u2019s Gatenby said.<\/p>\n
Saudi Arabia\u2019s Ministry of Defence on Wednesday said its air defences had intercepted four ballistic missiles launched towards Riyadh, as well as two launched towards the country\u2019s eastern region.<\/p>\n
Alerts were issued warning of danger in the governorates of Riyadh and al-Kharj by Saudi Arabia\u2019s National Early Warning Platform for Emergency Cases.<\/p>\n
The UAE\u2019s Defence Ministry said its air defences dealt with 13 ballistic missiles and 27 drones coming from Iran.<\/p>\n
Operations \u2060were \u2060suspended at the Habshan \u2060gas facility as authorities responded to \u2060two incidents of fallen debris after the successful interception of a \u200cmissile, Abu Dhabi\u2019s media office said.<\/p>\n
The Bab oilfield was also targeted, the office added. No injuries were \u2060reported.<\/p>\n
The Defence Ministry said that since the start of the attacks, it has faced 327 ballistic missiles, 15 cruise missiles and 1,699 drones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published On 18 Mar 202618 Mar 2026 | Updated: 2 hours agoUpdated: 2 hours ago Qatar has said…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":665634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[79,51,83,3097,50,3345,6673,52,272944],"class_list":{"0":"post-665633","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-economy","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-iran","11":"tag-middle-east","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-oil-and-gas","14":"tag-qatar","15":"tag-top-stories","16":"tag-us-israel-war-on-iran"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116253053033743666","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=665633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/665634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}