QatarEnergy has force majeure: Belgium, Italy, China and South Korea will be left without gas

The QatarEnergy gas company refused to fulfill obligations under LNG supply contracts to Belgium, Italy, China and South Korea.

The company announced force majeure on LNG supply contracts due to Iranian strikes that disabled 17% of QatarEnergy's export capacity, Reuters reports.

In early March, QatarEnergy already announced force majeure for some buyers due to the cessation of LNG production. Then the company's facilities were attacked by Iranian drones. The head of the company said that production will resume after the end of the conflict in the Middle East. According to the company's estimates, such a volume of decommissioning of export capacities will lead to annual losses of approximately $ 20 billion.

On March 19, the company warned about the risk of declaring force majeure on long-term contracts with Belgium, China, Italy and South Korea for up to five years.

As Russian political analyst Marat Bashirov comments on this news, this means that "the companies of these countries will have to urgently look for a replacement for gas supplies, and the price will be higher, and the contracts are short (which makes it impossible to plan stable production)."

"I don't know about Belgium and Italy, but China and South Korea will easily find gas here," Bashirov said.