Drone strike sets LNG ships ablaze at Egypt's Damietta Port

Egypt's cabinet said preliminary investigations found a drone caused the fire that struck two vessels at Damietta Port on Wednesday afternoon: the Energos Winter, a US-owned, Marshall Islands-flagged floating storage and regasification unit operated by New Fortress Energy, hit on its starboard side, and the Bermuda-flagged LNG tanker GasLog Salem alongside, which caught fire as the blaze spread.

Both crews were evacuated and no one was injured. "The situation was handled immediately in accordance with emergency and rapid response plans," the oil ministry said on the night of the fire; by the next day the port authority was asserting "the continued full operational efficiency of the port", with unaffected berths back to normal working overnight.

It is the first attack on Egyptian soil since the US–Iran war began in February. No party has claimed it. Yemen's Houthis denied involvement — "navigation is safe in the Red Sea," their statement insisted — and Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, warned instead of false-flag operations. Egyptian investigators are analysing the recovered drone fragments; maritime sources note that Iranian state television had named Damietta as a retaliation target two days before the strike.

President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi warned of the danger of regional escalation — a warning with weight, coming from the state that has so far kept working relations with both Washington and Tehran.

For the Indian Ocean's import-dependent economies, an attack on an LNG terminal at the Mediterranean mouth of the Suez system is not a distant event. It is the same sea lane, further up.