The Argentine Paradox
Rystad Energy, the energy research and consultancy firm, has put a floor on the Gulf conflict's toll on energy infrastructure: at least $25 billion in repair and restoration costs, a figure the consultancy warns may be revised upward. The number that matters most for global LNG markets, however, is not the dollar amount. It is the OEM production backlog.
The destruction of liquefaction trains S4 and S6 at Ras Laffan Industrial City, Qatar's main LNG and petrochemical export hub, triggered a force majeure declaration — a contractual clause suspending delivery obligations due to events beyond a party's control — by QatarEnergy, Qatar's state energy company, and removed approximately 12.8 MTPA of liquefied natural gas (LNG) capacity from the market, roughly 17% of Qatar's total export capacity.
Qatar is the world's largest LNG exporter, supplying approximately 77 MTPA of nameplate capacity before the conflict, making the loss a supply shock with direct pricing implications for European and Asian buyers. Full recovery could take up to five years — a timeline Rystad argues is not a function of available capital.
Rystad breaks the $25 billion estimate into cost categories: engineering and construction accounts for 49% of the total, equipment and materials for 39%, with operations and logistics making up the remainder. Qatar, Iran, and Bahrain are identified as the most severely affected cases.
The Bottleneck Money Can't Solve
Large-frame turbines for the main refrigeration compressors of LNG liquefaction trains are manufactured by just three original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) worldwide, according to Rystad: GE Vernova, the U.S. power equipment and electrification company spun off from General Electric in 2023, alongside Baker Hughes, a U.S. oilfield services company specializing in LNG turbomachinery; Siemens Energy, the German industrial energy company; and Mitsubishi Power, the Japanese power equipment manufacturer.
All three entered 2026 with production backlogs of two to four years, driven by data center electrification demand and coal plant retirements. The destruction of Ras Laffan places a substantial additional order on that supply chain.
Iran adds a distinct complication. The country's exclusion from Western supply chains — a consequence of international sanctions — forces reliance on Chinese and domestic contractors for the recovery of South Pars, the Iranian portion of the South Pars/North Dome field — the world's largest natural gas reservoir, shared with Qatar's North Field. Technically viable, Rystad notes, but slower and more expensive.
Bahrain, the Gulf island state, presents a third scenario distinguished by its timing. The Sitra refinery was struck twice, with confirmed damage to two crude distillation units (CDUs) — the primary processing columns that fractionate crude oil into refined products — and a tank terminal, with force majeure declared on its operations. The facility had only completed commissioning in December 2025, following a $7 billion modernization program, with engineering contractors still on site completing startup obligations when the attacks occurred.
The Argentine Paradox
The same three OEMs responsible for rebuilding Ras Laffan are the ones Argentina's LNG export projects need to move forward. Among them: the Argentina LNG project, a phased LNG export initiative led by YPF, Argentina's state-controlled oil and gas company, in partnership with ENI, the Italian energy company, and XRG, ADNOC's international investment arm; and the Janus project led by Compañía General de Combustibles (CGC), an Argentine independent E&P company. Both require exactly the same large-frame turbines from the same three suppliers now absorbing Gulf reconstruction demand.
The conflict does not run in a single direction for Argentina. It removes Qatar as a competitor in the Asian LNG market for years — improving the commercial outlook for any Argentine project that reaches production before Ras Laffan recovers. For Argentina LNG, that window is accessible via Atlantic export routes that bypass the Strait of Hormuz and the Suez Canal. At the same time, the conflict intensifies pressure on the equipment supply chain that was already the primary physical bottleneck for the global LNG industry.
Argentina LNG has targeted its final investment decision (FID) for the second half of 2026, with first exports projected for 2030–2031. If the FID is confirmed on that schedule and the project advances to construction, its two floating LNG (FLNG) units — each rated at 6 MTPA — will enter the same turbine queue now dominated by Gulf reconstruction demand. As far as Shale24 could establish, no market participant has publicly flagged that equipment competition.
The window exists. The challenge is reaching it before the Gulf's reconstruction demand consumes the available equipment capacity.