An “unknown virus” has shutdown the entire computer network of the world’s second largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) producer, RasGas, according to news reports.
RasGas is based in Qatar, a peninsular nation located within the larger Arabian Peninsula. The LNG producer has reportedly been offline for three days and has been communicating via telephone and word-of-mouth.
“Our IT department is facing technical difficulties, we have been affected by an ‘unknown virus’, our operational systems onsite and offshore are secure and this does affect nor impact our production as a Ras Laffan Industrial City plant or scheduled cargoes,” a RasGas spokesperson said in a Pipeline Magazine report.
The spokesperson went on to say that RasGas’s IT team is working to resolve the outage as soon as possible.
This incident follows a widely publicized attack on 30,000 machines belonging to Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil producer, located in neighboring Saudi Arabia.
The RasGas website remains offline at the time of publication.
