Qatar LNG, Hormuz Transit Risk and Damage at Ras Laffan

Qatar’s liquefied natural gas industry sits at the centre of the 2026 Middle East energy shock because every LNG tanker leaving the country must pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Unlike Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which can move some crude oil through bypass pipelines, Qatar has no alternative seaborne export route for LNG. When transit through the Strait became unsafe after the war began on 28 February, Qatari cargoes largely stopped. The verified record from Euronews reporting in late September, drawing on ICIS cargo data, and from International Energy Agency assessments of Gulf gas losses, shows how severe that interruption has been and what physical damage at Ras Laffan means for the recovery path.

Euronews, citing ship tracking and industry sources, states that every LNG tanker leaving Qatar must pass through Hormuz because the country has no alternative export route. The cargo collapse itself is quantified by ICIS data reported by Euronews. Qatar exported only 18 LNG cargoes during the first six months of the war, compared with 509 in the same period a year earlier. Euronews reports that attacks on Ras Laffan damaged two LNG production units, cutting Qatar’s production capacity by around 17 per cent.

Al Kaabi also addressed a recurring policy suggestion: building a pipeline around the Strait. Euronews quotes him as saying that such a route would make no economic sense, because it would require a new plant outside Qatar to turn piped gas into LNG before it could be loaded onto tankers. Euronews reports that QatarEnergy extended delivery suspensions for some customers in Europe and Asia. Between March and June, according to the IEA Gas Market Report for the third quarter of 2026, LNG loadings from Qatar and the UAE declined by 35 billion cubic metres year on year.

Non Gulf LNG production grew by almost 18 per cent, or around 27 billion cubic metres, offsetting around three quarters of the decline. For Transition Economics Institute, the Qatar case illustrates a hard constraint in gas market design. Diversification of import sources can cushion a Hormuz closure for buyers that can access Atlantic Basin LNG. None of this requires speculation about war tactics beyond what sources state. Euronews records that the disruption began after joint United States Israeli strikes on Iran on 28 February, and that both the United States and Iran targeted commercial ships in and around the Strait.

Indicator one is monthly Qatari LNG cargo counts against the ICIS baseline of 509 cargoes in the comparable pre war six month window. Almost one fifth of world LNG trade moved through Hormuz in 2025, and Qatar was the dominant Gulf supplier in that corridor.