Ras Laffan Industrial City covers 295 square kilometres and is the centre of Qatar’s natural gas operations. The city supports industries that have built up around the North Field, part of the largest non-associated gas reservoir in the world.

The area was designed by the US’ Bechtel and cost more than $1bn to develop, opening in 1996. Dozens of production plants have been established in the city, among them RasGas, the Pearl GTL, the Qatargas liquefied natural gas (LNG) trains, and the Dolphin Gas export infrastructure.

The Ras Laffan port has the largest artificial harbour in the world and was built to handle exports from the industrial city.

The port includes six liquid product berths, a sulphur berth, six dry cargo berths and 14 offshore support vessel berths. Its main exports are the 77 million tonnes a year of LNG produced by Qatargas and RasGas.

Wholly owned by Qatar Petroleum, Ras Laffan is mandated to provide infrastructure and services to enable industries to exploit the vast gas reserves of the North Field.