Stranded Middle East LNG Supply Upends Gas Markets
Kpler says renewed attacks and force majeure notices are limiting cargoes as North Field output stays near minimal rates.
- According to data analytics firm Kpler, Qatar's October LNG exports are projected to fall to around 0.6 million tons amid renewed attacks on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
- The country was forced to shut down much of its main LNG complex at Ras Laffan shortly after hostilities began, with QatarEnergy extending force majeure notices on deliveries through November.
- Europe faces a costly winter with gas storage just 73% full, while price-sensitive buyers in Asia feel the supply squeeze as global volumes remain constrained.
- LNG demand in South Asia is crumbling as prices soar, and the International Monetary Fund forecasts Qatar's gross domestic product will contract by 8.6% in 2026.
- Despite long-term expansion plans to raise capacity to 142 million tons by 2030, repairs on two damaged production trains at Ras Laffan will take three years.
17 Articles
17 Articles
Four years ago, Europe was forced to look urgently for ways to replace 40% of its gas imports after being cut off from Russian gas pipelines following the war in Ukraine. It resorted to Qatar, then the world’s largest producer of liquefied natural gas (LNG). “We have been reliable for more than 26 years,” the Gulf State Energy Minister, Saad al-Kaabi, boasted at the time in his luxurious office. “We have never failed in a shipment.” Today, that …
Lemirat tries to maintain its LNG exports despite the attacks in the Strait of Ormuz and the losses caused by drone attacks. ...
Qatar Rewrites Its Gas Playbook With Old Tankers and New Tactics
Six months into a war that sowed upheaval in the Persian Gulf, Qatar found itself stuck. By late August, even limited shipments from the gas heavyweight had all but stopped following a projectile attack on one of its tankers outside the Strait of Hormuz. Pressure was growing, not only from energy-starved clients but also from inside an economy built on regular deliveries.
Stranded Middle East LNG Supply Upends Gas Markets
The LNG supply out of the Middle East has not recovered in any meaningful way seven and a half months after the Iran war choked oil and gas shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. Since March, some occasional LNG cargoes have managed to squeeze through the chokepoint where a fifth of global liquefied Natural Gas supplies passed before the war. The rare shipments are not making much of a difference in the global gas market, which suddenly found i…
Middle East LNG industry remains hostage of Iran war: Bousso
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