Qatar’s LNG Supply Freeze Stretches Into Autumn as Hormuz Blockade Persists
Usagevpn.com – The global gas market is absorbing yet another blow from the Middle East. QatarEnergy has pushed its force majeure declarations on liquefied natural gas shipments further into the autumn, covering deliveries destined for both European and Asian buyers. The extension comes as commercial LNG transit through the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively shut down, leaving the world’s largest single-source LNG exporter unable to move product to market.
Scope of the Cancellation Wave
Italian power company Edison confirmed that five additional cargoes originally slated between late September and early November will not arrive. Those five shipments push the cumulative total under Edison’s contract to 29 cargoes since April — roughly 3.8 billion cubic metres of natural gas that will never reach Italian terminals. The utility stated it has already sourced substitute volumes for 21 of those cargoes, approximately 2 billion cubic metres, and expects to honour its downstream supply obligations.
The disruption is not confined to Europe. Buyers in Pakistan have been informed that cancellations will persist through October, while Bangladesh faces continued shortfalls extending past September. Additional European purchasers have begun receiving comparable force majeure notices, signalling that the supply gap is broadening rather than narrowing.
QatarEnergy initially invoked force majeure in March. Since then, the declaration has been renewed on a month-by-month basis as the Hormuz blockade has outlasted every timeline buyers had modelled.
Scale of the Market Shock
The numbers underscore how severe the interruption has been. ICIS data show Qatar shipped just 18 LNG cargoes during the first six months of the conflict, compared with 509 in the equivalent window a year earlier. Analysts estimate the lost sales represent approximately $24 billion (€20.7 billion) in foregone revenue for the state-owned exporter.
Before the Iran war, the Strait of Hormuz handled roughly one-fifth of all global LNG trade. Oil tankers have continued transiting the waterway in limited numbers, but LNG carriers are far fewer in fleet size, more technically specialised, and considerably harder to substitute. That structural constraint leaves Qatar with very few practical workarounds for moving its gas to market.
Who Is Filling the Gap — and Who Is Left Exposed
Other producers have stepped in partially. Anne-Sophie Corbeau, a global research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, noted increased volumes arriving from the United States and Canada, including from facilities that only began operations within the past year. Output from Nigeria and Malaysia has also run above prior levels.
Yet replacement flows have not closed the shortfall. Several Asian markets have trimmed consumption or pivoted to alternative fuels. In Europe, utilities have drawn more heavily on underground storage rather than bidding aggressively for premium-priced spot cargoes.
“Available cargoes are going to the buyers bidding for them,” Corbeau observed, adding that certain Southeast Asian purchasers have stayed active in the market despite elevated price levels.
The unevenness of the impact is stark. EU LNG imports between April and August ran below year-earlier levels. Chinese arrivals also fell, though the monthly pattern was irregular. Corbeau identified the countries most exposed as those with heavy structural dependence on Qatari or Emirati gas and insufficient contracted replacement volumes. Short-term, spot-market-dependent importers face the sharpest risk. She singled out Pakistan, Bangladesh, and India as particularly vulnerable.
Japan, by contrast, is comparatively insulated. It purchases relatively little LNG from Qatar and maintains a diversified portfolio of long-term contracts indexed to oil or US Henry Hub gas prices. China has absorbed the loss of a substantial Qatari volume to date, while Europe has leaned on storage drawdowns — a strategy that leaves inventory stocks thinner heading into winter.
Outlook: A Multi-Year Adjustment
“Absent any political resolution or one of the main stakeholders blinking first, we are still likely to be there for quite some time,” Corbeau said.
She explained that QatarEnergy continues renewing force majeure monthly because no reliable resumption date for normal exports exists. A brief window of limited LNG movement opened following a June memorandum between the United States and Iran, but renewed attacks quickly re-escalated shipping risk and the recovery collapsed.
On the production side, QatarEnergy has indicated it expects to bring its 12 undamaged LNG trains back online within roughly two months once it judges the strait sufficiently secure. Two additional units damaged in strikes on the Ras Laffan complex face repair timelines of three to five years.
New export capacity under construction in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Nigeria will gradually add non-Qatari volumes to the market. Corbeau cautioned, however, that the global trade balance may not return to the more comfortable supply-demand equilibrium previously anticipated by mid-2026 until as late as 2028. In the interim, she warned that the sustained loss of Qatari and Emirati LNG could push total global trade volumes lower in 2026 even as output expands elsewhere.
QatarEnergy did not respond to requests for comment on the latest extension.
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