A drone strike ignited a fire at Egypt's Mediterranean port of Damietta on Wednesday, damaging two gas vessels and drawing a response from firefighting and security teams. The blaze hit Energos Winter and Gaslog Salem near the Suez Canal, a route now carrying added risk as Middle East tensions widen.
British maritime security firm Ambrey said on Wednesday that a drone struck a US-owned gas storage tanker at the port. Trading sources identified the vessels as Energos Winter and Gaslog Salem, and one source said the fire began on the starboard side of Energos Winter before spreading.
Karim Badawi at Damietta
Egypt's petroleum ministry said on Wednesday that the fires were brought under control. Karim Badawi then visited the site to oversee the response efforts, after crews had contained the blaze and secured the damaged vessels.
Energos Winter is a floating storage and regasification unit owned by US-based Energos Infrastructure and managed by Wilhelmsen Ship Management. Its regasification capacity is approximately 450 million cubic feet per day, equal to roughly 7 per cent of Egypt's daily gas consumption and 16 per cent of Egypt's total LNG receiving and regasification capacity.
Egypt cabinet on Thursday
The Egyptian cabinet said on Thursday that the blaze was the result of an attack rather than an accident. The incident has not been claimed by any party, so the official account now sits beside a responsibility gap that leaves the motive and the attacker unidentified.
Sources said the vessels are expected to remain out of service for an extended period, which keeps part of Egypt's gas import and regasification system offline after the Damietta fire. Egypt has recently reverted to being a significant LNG buyer because of declining domestic production and surging demand, so even a temporary outage at Damietta removes capacity from a system already under pressure.
That pressure is why the damage at Damietta reaches beyond the port itself. Andres Cantor on VAR was about a football turnaround, but this incident is about a strategic energy node near the Suez Canal, and the unanswered issue remains who carried out the drone attack on Damietta port and why.
