Qatar refuses to hedge against Hormuz

Saad al-Kaabi, Qatar's energy minister and chief executive of QatarEnergy, rejected the US Treasury Secretary's forecast for the Strait of Hormuz at the Qatar Economic Forum in New York on Sunday 20 September. "I mean, maybe this is his view. I think this is completely wrong", al-Kaabi told Bloomberg, and said of the strait that "I don't think this is ever going to be obsolete"⁠¹. He was answering Scott Bessent, who told an interviewer in Asheville, North Carolina on Tuesday 1 September, alongside meetings with G20 finance ministers, that "In two years, the strait of Hormuz will be like a worthless piece of water"⁠². Bessent said in the same interview that the oil would travel overland by pipeline instead⁠³. Two allies, one chokepoint, opposite forecasts.

Each side has already spent money on its answer, which is what lifts this above a spat between officials. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are extending Hormuz bypass capacity through Red Sea ports and overland pipelines. Qatar has deliberately declined to build any⁠⁴. For utilities in Japan, Korea and Europe that buy Qatari liquefied natural gas on twenty-year contracts, that refusal sits in the gas price rather than in a diversified route.

Laying a bypass pipeline takes years and repays over decades, which makes this the slowest bet either government can place. A line laid for a war that ends in 2027 becomes a stranded asset with decades of repayment left on it. A chokepoint left unhedged in a war that does not end becomes a national emergency. Qatar is insuring against the war ending; Washington's Treasury is insuring against it lasting.

Bessent has one solid argument: capacity that exists on land cannot be blockaded at sea, and a mined strait carrying about 20% of the world's seaborne oil has no published clearance timetable. Drones shut Saudi Arabia's own East-West line on 10 September and it is still not at full capacity, which cuts the other way on how durable a pipeline actually is. Against Bessent sits a fact of physics rather than of strategy: no pipeline yet built or planned can move liquefied gas, because the fuel has to be chilled at a coastal terminal and lifted by a specialised carrier. Qatari cargo has no alternative loading point at any price.