Key facts
- Egypt officially confirmed a drone attack caused a fire on two ships at Damietta port on July 29.
- The U.S.-owned Energos Winter was struck by a drone, and the fire spread to the Greek-owned GasLog Salem.
- No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
- The incident occurred amid heightened regional tensions between the U.S. and Iran.
- The vessels were moved offshore after the fire was extinguished.
Egypt has officially confirmed that a drone strike caused a fire on two gas vessels at its Damietta port on July 29, marking the first official statement on the incident. The Egyptian cabinet stated that the blaze was the result of an attack, not an accident. No group has claimed responsibility for the incident, which occurred amid escalating regional tensions.
The drone reportedly hit a U.S.-owned floating storage and regasification vessel, Energos Winter, sparking a blaze that spread to a Greek-owned LNG tanker, GasLog Salem. Verified videos posted on social media showed clouds of black smoke rising from the port and tugboats hosing down the ships with water. The fires were extinguished and no casualties were reported by Egyptian authorities, who said the port was continuing to operate at full capacity on Thursday. Energos Winter and GasLog Salem left the port and moved offshore following the incident, according to ship tracking data.
US President Donald Trump told reporters on Wednesday that he had been briefed on what happened in Damietta and implied that Iran or its proxies were responsible. The Damietta attack came hours after the US and Saudi Arabia carried out joint air strikes on Iran-backed armed groups in Iraq that they said had attacked Saudi oil facilities with drones 30 times in recent days at the direction of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Iraq's paramilitary Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), which is dominated by Iran-backed Shia militias, said at least 20 of its members were killed in the strikes, which they called an 'extremely serious escalation'. Iran's foreign ministry also condemned the strikes and warned of 'dangerous consequences'. On Wednesday night, the US carried out what it described as a 'heavy wave of strikes' on Iran in response to an attempted 'surprise' missile attack on US military facilities in Jordan.
The Energos Winter has a regasification capacity of approximately 450 million cubic feet per day, representing about 7% of Egypt's daily gas consumption and 16% of its total LNG receiving capacity. While the outage is not expected to create an immediate supply gap due to alternative import facilities, it will reduce spare capacity during peak summer demand.