Thirty-five tankers cleared the Strait of Hormuz on 2 July, the first pre-war-typical count of the conflict, and glut framing followed. The gas-relevant constraint has not moved: LNG carriers run under a separate escort-convoy cap, and QatarEnergy's two destroyed trains hold recovery near 83% of nameplate. TTF near EUR 43.6 and the JKM-TTF arb did not reprice, and EU storage crossed 50% with the November gap still open.
Hormuz's tanker rebound, Europe's storage gap, and the FR-DE spread unwind all trade headlines against unmoved physical ceilings.
Al Jazeera counted 35 tankers exiting the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday 2 July, the first pre-war-typical daily total of the conflict, though its seven-day moving average still trails last year.
QatarUnited StatesThirty-five tankers exited the strait of Hormuz on Thursday 2 July, the first daily count back inside the pre-war-typical range since the conflict began, though the seven-day moving average remains below last year's level and IMF PortWatch's 3 July reading still shows transits at roughly a third of pre-crisis levels.
A transit-exposed desk prices the seven-day trend, and that trend still trails 2025 even as the single-day count returns to range.
QatarEnergy's LNG restart stays paced by naval-escort capacity, not diplomacy, as carriers cross Hormuz on a separate convoy schedule from crude and two destroyed Ras Laffan trains hold recovery near 83% of nameplate.
United Kingdom×2TTF settled around EUR 43.6/MWh on 1 July, a two-week high driven by US-Iran-talks-in-Qatar jitters rather than physical LNG supply, as LNG carriers continued crossing the strait of Hormuz under a separate escort-convoy regime from crude tankers; QatarEnergy's restart stays capped by escort capacity, and two destroyed Ras Laffan trains hold recovery near 83% of pre-conflict nameplate.
A strong crude-tanker day carries no read for gas, because LNG carriers queue for escorts separately and the Ras Laffan train losses cap output regardless.
GIE AGSI+ recorded EU gas storage at 50.03% on the gas day to 5 July, six to eight points below the 56% held a year earlier, with the daily fill flat rather than accelerating.
BelgiumEuropean gas storage sat six to eight points behind the prior year on the gas day to 5 July at 50.03%, against 56% at the same date in 2025, and its +0.25 to +0.31 percentage-point daily fill held flat versus the prior week rather than accelerating to close the winter-target gap.
Storage crossed the halfway mark on an unchanged +0.25 to +0.31 point daily pace, the trajectory that lands near 69-70% by November against the mandatory 80% floor.
The France-Germany day-ahead spread compressed about 70% from its 30 June heatwave peak of EUR 71.50 to around EUR 18-26 by 5 July, as German prices nearly halved and France held the cheaper leg.
The France-Germany day-ahead power spread compressed roughly 70% from its 30 June heatwave peak of EUR 71.50/MWh to around EUR 18-26/MWh by 4-5 July, as German day-ahead prices fell to roughly EUR 62-64/MWh from EUR 195 and France held the cheaper leg throughout the window.
France kept the cheaper day-ahead leg through the unwind, and the forward risk sits in September when Flamanville-3's year-long overhaul pulls roughly 1.6 GW of nuclear from the fleet.
AI-assisted, human-edited under the editorial responsibility of Bannermedia Ltd. Reviewed by Ed Woodcock on 6 July 2026. Editorial standards.
