An electricity cable between Qatar and Iran, despite the bombings
Doha is considering a power link with Tehran following the attacks on its energy infrastructure. Iranian Minister Abbas Aliabadi has confirmed this. The crux of the matter is not how much electricity can be transmitted across the Gulf, but who can guarantee it when it is really needed. Sanctions are also causing problems.
Key points
The cable does not yet exist. At present, it is merely a proposal and a figure in a budget. Yet, centred on that imaginary route, a decision is being made on a matter that Qatar cannot put off: whether the electricity that powers desalination and the pumping of drinking water might one day come from a country that, last March, attacked Qatari facilities.
Qatar is, in fact, considering an electricity link with Iran whilst it assesses the consequences of those attacks on its own energy infrastructure. Doha is seeking an additional source of supply in a country plagued by power shortages and war damage. Kahramaa, the public utility responsible for electricity and water, has commissioned Energoprojekt Entel to carry out a feasibility study worth 6.228 million Qatari riyals (the equivalent of 1.5 million euros). For an economy in which electricity also powers desalination and the pumping of drinking water, the crucial question is not the number of international connections, but the ability to receive power via a network that remains operational during a regional crisis.
The race, the figures, the gap between the two
Documents from the Qatari Ministry of Finance list two tenders, 2069/2022 and 3559/2022, published in 2022, involving the same contractor and the same sum of 6.228 million riyals (1.5 million euros), awarded in June 2025. The relationship between the two tenders is unclear: adding the figures together would amount to inventing a second expenditure. On 16 June 2026, the Iranian Minister of Energy, Abbas Aliabadi, stated that the studies were nearing completion (by 2026) and that the project was at the start of implementation. The date therefore appears to be drawing nearer, even though the decisions required to transform a consultancy project into an infrastructure project are still pending (or have not been made public): total cost, technology, connection points, financiers, capacity and timetable.
What the Iranian figures really tell us
In June 2026, Aliabadi cited a nominal generation capacity of 100.315 megawatts and a target of 130,000 megawatts, but also reported that 4,700 megawatts had been damaged by the war and were therefore unavailable. The picture provided by the US Energy Information Administration is instructive. In 2023, Iran’s peak summer demand exceeded the available supply by 12 gigawatts; in 2022, the country had produced 361 terawatt-hours net, 93 per cent of which came from fossil fuels, with natural gas accounting for 85 per cent. Net electricity exports had fallen from nearly 7 terawatt-hours in 2020 to around 1 in 2023. Tehran knows how to sell energy across the border, but this experience does not equate to the availability of a guaranteed reserve during the hours when both countries may simultaneously face peak demand.
The bombings
The problem does not stem solely from the electric scale. On 2 March 2026, the Qatari Ministry of Defence reported that two Iranian drones had targeted a water reservoir associated with the Mesaieed power station and a QatarEnergy in Ras Laffan. On 18 March, according to the same ministry, of the five ballistic missiles fired at Qatar, four were intercepted and one struck Ras Laffan; QatarEnergy reported extensive industrial damage. The following day, the Ministry of the Interior announced that two fires at three sites in the area had been brought under control. No structures collapsed, but dependence on the facility has increased.
