At least 13 workers were killed and 66 others injured in an explosion at a factory in Qatar's Ras Laffan Industrial City, the country's minister of state for energy affairs said on Monday, prompting an investigation into one of the deadliest industrial accidents in the Gulf state in recent years.
Saad bin Sherida al-Kaabi told a press conference that the casualties were caused by the incident at the industrial complex, revising an earlier toll provided by the Interior Ministry.
Al-Kaabi said the incident was operational and technical in nature, "not an act of sabotage,” adding that a fire caused by the blast had been brought under control.
He said the explosion had no impact on liquefied natural gas export operations, main facilities, or Ras Laffan Port.
The Interior Ministry said early Monday that 54 people had been injured and 18 others were missing after the explosion.
Civil defense teams, along with the Qatari International Search and Rescue Group, launched operations to locate those unaccounted for, the ministry said.
Authorities had also said no leak posing a threat to public safety had been recorded following the blast.
The incident highlights the challenges Gulf producers face in ramping up oil and gas production from facilities shut in during the Iran war.
Qatar has been among the hardest hit by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, as it has no alternative routes to export its LNG.
Restarting LNG operations is a particularly complex process due to a deliberately slow cooldown to avoid thermal shock. LNG trains cannot restart simultaneously and must be brought back in sequence.
In the liquifaction process - which turns gas into a liquid state by cooling it down to approximately minus 162 degrees Celsius (minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit) - the cooldown is the most critical step.
The plant where the blast occurred, the Barzan gas supply facility, is part of Ras Laffan Industrial City, QatarEnergy's vast LNG production and export site with an annual production capacity of 77 million metric tons.
Barzan supplies pipeline gas for local industry and power generation and can also produce liquefied petroleum gas and other products for export.