Far-right outlets are posting dire stories about four natural gas facilities supposedly being destroyed in recent explosions. Many imply that the explosions are part of a conspiracy.
These stories are inspiring fears of an energy crisis, famine, or even war.
But in stoking such fears, they also wildly misstate the facts. While there have been four explosions at and around fuel processing facilities, none of the plants were destroyed. And one of the facilities doesn’t even process natural gas.
Three of the incidents were serious enough to close the facility, though none appear to be permanently shuttered. One of those has since reopened.
The explosions also haven’t occurred in “the last two weeks” as multiple articles claim. The first happened in early June. Even if all had been in “the last two weeks” as claimed, that wouldn’t prove much, if anything.
Such claims appear to have originated in a story by an outlet called News Punch, which posted a piece called “4 natural gas facilities in US destroyed in ‘freak events’ in last 2 weeks” on Friday.
That story has since been repeated in multiple other fringe outlets and across social media.
The story itself contradicts the timeline and extent of the damage claimed by the headline. Two of the four incidents referenced by News Punch occurred three and six weeks ago, rather than within the last two weeks. None of the facilities have thus far been deemed “destroyed.” And one doesn’t even produce natural gas.
News Punch implies that these explosions were somehow linked to petroleum prices. “Of course, gas prices have been spiking dramatically all over the world, and so this string of ‘freak events’ comes at a deeply suspicious time.”
It gives no evidence that this is true.
The first incident News Punch references is a June 8 explosion at a liquefied natural gas terminal in Freeport, Texas. That facility is reportedly expected to reopen in several months.
The second occurred weeks later. A tanker truck caught fire in the loading rack of a refinery in Alaska. It was contained within an hour. That facility, the Petro Star Valdez Refinery, produces petroleum-based products, but not natural gas. A staffer at the refinery told the Daily Dot over the phone on Tuesday that the facility was closed for about a week but has since reopened.
The third, on July 7, is a gas pipeline explosion in a rural area southwest of Houston, Texas. Local officials report that the damage was isolated to a field and no structures were affected. The fire was extinguished in roughly an hour.
In the last, and most serious incident of the four, a July 9 fire at an Oklahoma natural gas processing plant forced hundreds of nearby residents to temporarily evacuate. As of Friday, that plant remained closed amid damage assessments.
Far-right fringe outlets didn’t let the facts get in the way of fearmongering about natural gas facilities being destroyed, however.
Other outlets started repeating these claims within a day of News Punch posting the piece it unironically tagged “fact checked.”
“Terror,” one of the derivative stories claimed, “RED ALERT.”
The Daily Dot found such stories uncritically posted on platforms all over the internet. Those sharing it include Facebook pages and Telegram channels with tens of thousands of followers.
These stories immediately began stoking fear and inspiring conspiracy theories.
Many of these posts include similarly unfounded claims, such as that food is being destroyed and food processing plants are being intentionally shuttered or burned to create mass starvation.
A redditor who posted about the natural gas facilities in r/Anarcho_Capitalism, which has 189,000 subscribers, wrote ominously, “Let me remind you. The people behind all of these destructions want most of us dead.”
Similarly dystopian and alarmist claims based on false information about exploding natural gas facilities popped up elsewhere.
On Truth Social someone warned, “WE’RE UNDER ATTACK….”
“War on American energy,” opined one Twitter user.
Even if these stories were getting their facts straight, which they aren’t, explosions or fires at fuel processing facilities or pipelines are undeniably serious business. They are not, however, evidence of a mass conspiracy or impending doom.