Qatar revenues fall 42% as war hits gas, emir says

Qatar's revenues fell 42 percent in the first half of 2026 as the Middle East war hit gas infrastructure and exports, Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani said Tuesday.

Speaking to the annual session of the Shura Council advisory body in Doha, the emir said Qatar had lost a “significant proportion” of its liquefied natural gas exports.

“The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, together with the direct damage inflicted on some energy facilities in Ras Laffan Industrial City, disrupted a significant portion of the country's exports,” he said.

Qatar is the world's second-largest LNG exporter after the United States. The emir said the crisis had hurt public finances, with total revenues down 42 percent in the first half of the year.

He said work on the North Field gas expansion was continuing according to plan. The project aims to raise Qatar's total production capacity to 142 million tonnes a year by 2030.

Sheikh Tamim also said the Golden Pass LNG project in the United States, being carried out with ExxonMobil, had made significant progress.

The International Monetary Fund forecast on Tuesday that Qatar's GDP would fall 15.6 percent this year.