On 22 July 2011, during the first Libyan civil war, one of the two plants making pipes for the project, the Brega Plant, was hit by a NATO air strike. At a press conference on 26 July, NATO claimed that rockets had been fired from within the plant area, and that military materiel, including multiple rocket launchers, was stored there according to intelligence findings, presenting a photo showing a BM-21 MRL as an example.