Qatar warns war will force Gulf to stop energy exports ‘within days’

[https://www.ft.com/content/be122b17-e667-478d-be19-89d605e978ea](https://www.ft.com/content/be122b17-e667-478d-be19-89d605e978ea)

Qatar’s energy minister has warned that war in the Middle East could “bring down the economies of the world”, predicting that all Gulf energy exporters would shut down production within days and drive oil to $150 a barrel. Saad al-Kaabi told the FT that even if the war ended immediately it would take Qatar “weeks to months” to return to a normal cycle of deliveries following an Iranian drone strike at its largest liquefied natural gas plant. Qatar, the world’s second-largest producer of LNG, was forced to declare force majeure this week after the strike at its Ras Laffan plant. While Qatar only exports a small proportion of its gas to Europe, the energy minister said the continent would feel significant pain as Asian buyers outbid Europeans for whatever gas is available on the market, and as other Gulf countries find themselves unable to meet their contractual obligations. “Everybody that has not called for force majeure we expect will do so in the next few days that this continues. All exporters in the Gulf region will have to call force majeure,” Kaabi said. “If they don’t, they are at some point going to pay the liability for that legally, and that’s their choice.” Kaabi’s comments reflect rising concern in the Gulf about the economic repercussions of the US and Israel’s war with Iran, which has wreaked havoc across the oil-rich region.