Benelux & Ireland in March 2026: the most important developments in economy
In March 2026, the economic news from the Benelux countries and Ireland was dominated by Shell's gas operations in Qatar. On 11 March, Shell declared force majeure on its liquefied natural gas contracts from Qatar, citing a supply shutdown that suspends its contractual obligations, and TotalEnergies was reported to have issued a similar notice. On 19 March, Shell halted production at its Pearl gas-to-liquids plant in Qatar after an Iranian attack. The company was assessing damage at the Ras Laffan facility, and Qatar expected a prolonged outage. On 24 March, Shell's chief executive warned that energy shortages in Europe could occur as soon as the following month. Shell also forecast that global demand for liquefied natural gas will rise by at least 54 percent by 2040.
A second theme was the chip industry. On 24 March, South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix agreed to buy about $8 billion of advanced chipmaking equipment from the Dutch firm ASML, including its latest high-NA extreme ultraviolet lithography machines. Executives of leading Chinese chip firms called for more government support to build a domestic rival to ASML. Infineon, NXP and STMicroelectronics announced a partnership with Nvidia to develop a computing platform for autonomous robots and AI-powered machines.
Other items were smaller. Shell signed an oil and gas exploration deal in Kazakhstan, and Brazil's competition regulator approved the sale of Shell's stake in an oil field to a Kuwaiti company. Stryker was hit by a global cyberattack by a suspected Iranian-backed group, affecting thousands of workers at its plants in Cork. CRH said it will fully delist from the London Stock Exchange after moving its primary listing to New York, and Rheinmetall acquired a majority stake in the Croatian vehicle maker Dok-Ing. A new direct train connection between Berlin and Amsterdam began service, while a Brussels-Milan sleeper service was postponed until September.
by WorldBrief & Maksim Micheliov | AI-generated summary
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