The world’s largest LNG expansion is racing to add 65 million tonnes of new capacity by 2030 — even as war with Iran has already knocked a fifth of today’s output offline, twice.
Eighteen months ago, Qatar’s story was simple: the world’s biggest LNG expansion, on schedule, adding 65 million tonnes of capacity to lift exports from 77 to 142 million tonnes a year by 2030. Four mega-trains at North Field East, two more at North Field South, two at North Field West — each a multi-billion-dollar bet that gas demand keeps climbing through the 2030s.
Then, on 28 February 2026, the United States and Israel launched military operations against Iran. Within days Iran declared the Strait of Hormuz closed, missiles struck Ras Laffan itself, and QatarEnergy halted LNG production entirely. Five months on, the plant has restarted and been paused twice more, North Field East’s construction has lost months it may never get back, and the Strait — the transit route for a fifth of the world’s LNG — remains one Iranian missile away from closing again.
This briefing separates the two stories that have become entangled: the expansion Qatar was always going to build, and the war that is now deciding how fast it can.
Expansion
Three phases, eight new trains, an 85% capacity increase — the plan Qatar is still trying to deliver on schedule.
| Phase | Added capacity | Target online | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| North Field East Trains 1–4 |
32 mtpa | Train 1 originally mid-2026; now Q3/Q4 2026 at earliest. Full 110 mtpa by ~2028 | Construction suspended Feb–May 2026 after Iran conflict evacuation; fully resumed May 2026. Partners include TotalEnergies, Shell, ConocoPhillips, Eni and ExxonMobil alongside QatarEnergy |
| North Field East add-on Trains 5–6 |
16 mtpa | 2029 (Tr.5) · 2030 (Tr.6) | FID reached late 2024; narrower equity syndicate than original four trains |
| North Field South Trains 1–2 |
16 mtpa | H2 2027 (Tr.1) · 2028 (Tr.2) | Under construction; long-term SPAs signed with Sinopec, CNPC, Shell and TotalEnergies |
| North Field West 2 mega-trains |
16 mtpa | Construction from ~2027 | Baker Hughes awarded equipment contract for 6 gas turbines, 12 compressors, Q1 2026; still in engineering phase; Chinese NOCs brought in as equity partners |
Conflict
A timeline of how the Iran war has repeatedly interrupted Qatar’s LNG output and the Strait of Hormuz.
| 28 Feb 2026 | US and Israeli forces launch military operations against Iran, opening the 2026 Iran war. |
| 1–2 Mar 2026 | Iran declares the Strait of Hormuz closed to shipping. Drone and missile strikes hit QatarEnergy’s Ras Laffan and Mesaieed complexes; QatarEnergy halts LNG production and declares force majeure on contracts with buyers in China, South Korea, Italy and Belgium. |
| Mar–Apr 2026 | Damage assessments confirm Trains 4 and 6 were hit, removing roughly 12.8 mtpa — about 17% of Qatar’s export capacity. Wood Mackenzie warns the affected units could stay offline for years. |
| 8 Apr 2026 | A ceasefire is agreed. Qatar begins mobilising engineers to restart Ras Laffan and resume construction at North Field East. |
| May 2026 | NFE construction fully resumes as evacuated contractor staff return to site; the original 2026 first-train timeline slips. |
| 21 Jun 2026 | An explosion occurs during restart operations at Ras Laffan, complicating an already cautious ramp-up. |
| 7 Jul 2026 | Renewed Iranian strikes hit a Qatari LNG tanker and other vessels near Hormuz. Washington reimposes oil sanctions on Iran; US Central Command strikes roughly 90 targets in Iran. |
| 9 Jul 2026 | QatarEnergy pauses its production ramp-up for the second time, holding Ras Laffan at minimum output for safety. |
| 14 Jul 2026 | Iranian missiles strike UAE-linked tankers in Omani waters; the US reinstates a naval blockade of Iranian shipping. |
| 16 Jul 2026 | Iran warns it may direct the Houthis to close the Bab-el-Mandeb strait — a second major chokepoint — if the US strikes its power grid. |
On the ground
Few independent voices have tracked this crisis as closely, or as publicly, as Mehdy Touil, who spent eleven years working LNG operations at Ras Laffan and has spent much of the past five months posting real-time shipping data on LinkedIn: laden carriers turning back short of the Strait, tankers stranded on the “wrong side” of Hormuz waiting for safe passage, and QatarEnergy’s tentative steps toward restart. His assessment, echoed by other industry analysts, is that the physical restart is the easy part — once QatarEnergy commits, unaffected production lines can be back up within roughly a week. The harder question, repeatedly borne out over the past five months, is whether tankers can then move safely once they are.
Outlook
Two separate clocks are now running against each other. Qatar’s expansion clock has slipped by months, not years — North Field East’s first new train, once expected by mid-2026, is now realistically a Q3 or Q4 event, with full 110 mtpa capacity pushed toward 2028. That is a manageable delay for a project running to 2030. The recovery clock is less predictable: 17% of existing capacity remains offline with no firm restart date, and every fresh exchange of strikes near Hormuz has, so far, reset Qatar’s own timeline for bringing the rest back to full output. European gas prices pushed back above €50/MWh in July for the first time since the brief spring ceasefire, and Asian spot prices have spent most of the past four months running well above pre-war levels — a reminder that in a market this concentrated, a single chokepoint can matter more than any amount of new liquefaction capacity coming down the line.
This is a live, fast-moving conflict and the details above reflect public reporting as of 17 July 2026. Figures on capacity, damage and timelines may change as the situation develops.