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European Energy Markets
20JUL

IEA logs Hormuz LNG loss at 2 bcm weekly

2 min read
11:19UTC

The IEA April Oil Market Report quantified the Hormuz disruption as removing over 300 Mmcm per day of LNG from Qatar and UAE since 1 March 2026, roughly 2 bcm per week and 12 bcm accumulated over six weeks, with mid-year resumption as the base case.

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EconomicDeveloping
Key takeaway

Over 2 bcm per week of Hormuz LNG supply is removed, IEA base case mid-year return.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) published its April 2026 Oil Market Report quantifying the Hormuz disruption as removing over 300 Mmcm per day of LNG from Qatar and UAE since 1 March, more than 2 bcm per week and approximately 12 bcm accumulated over six weeks 1. The report sets the IEA base case as a mid-year resumption of Middle East deliveries, not a return to pre-conflict levels.

The IEA is the Paris-based intergovernmental body whose monthly Oil Market Report is the primary multilateral quantification of global oil and gas balances. Placing the Hormuz LNG loss as a weekly run-rate rather than a cumulative figure lets market participants track whether the disruption is stable, deepening, or easing week by week. A stable run-rate at 2 bcm per week for six weeks is the signal the report is sending.

The figure sits against the EU storage starting position of 29.55% on 13 April . If more than 12 bcm of global supply has already been removed in six weeks, Europe's ability to outbid Asia for marginal cargoes deteriorates each week the disruption holds. The JKM-TTF spread geometry currently gives flexible Atlantic cargoes no routing-cost case for a European bias, which means the OIES-identified gap is not being closed by arbitrage; it would have to be closed by outbidding Asian spot demand outright.

The IEA mid-year base case deserves the pressure test. Counting from the closure date, the 90-day Qatari normalisation clock places the earliest plausible return well inside the European injection window, overlapping with Equinor's Hammerfest LNG planned restart. Any slippage on either side of that alignment extends the window during which European injection runs without the Qatari leg. The IEA's tracker in subsequent monthly reports will show whether the 2 bcm per week run-rate stabilises or deepens as the Q2 clock advances.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

The International Energy Agency (IEA) is a global organisation of energy-importing countries that publishes monthly analyses of oil and gas markets. Its April 2026 report calculated that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has been removing more than 2 billion cubic metres of gas per week from global markets since 1 March mostly gas from Qatar and the United Arab Emirates that would normally flow to Europe and Asia. Over six weeks that adds up to roughly 12 billion cubic metres about a third of what Europe typically injects into storage over an entire summer. The IEA expects Middle East gas flows to start returning around mid-year, but that estimate depends on a ceasefire holding and significant technical work at the affected export facilities.

Deep Analysis
Root Causes

The 2 bcm per week run-rate loss represents the structural consequence of concentrating 17% of global LNG export capacity in a single geographic complex at the end of a strait that has historically been subject to geopolitical risk. The Ras Laffan complex was built on the commercial logic that Hormuz is a stable transit corridor protected by CENTCOM deterrence. That deterrence failed to prevent the March 2026 strikes and the subsequent closure.

The force majeure declaration reveals a second structural risk: the legal architecture of Qatari LNG contracts does not provide European buyers with contractual remedies for a supply interruption attributable to a geopolitical event at the seller's end. Buyers in Belgium, Italy, and Poland face both a physical shortage and a contractual dead-end simultaneously.

What could happen next?
  • Consequence

    The 2 bcm per week run-rate provides market participants with a weekly benchmarking tool: IEA's subsequent monthly reports will confirm whether the disruption is stable, deepening, or easing.

  • Risk

    If the mid-year resumption assumption slips by four to six weeks, the overlap with Hammerfest's maintenance window extends, removing two flexible supply offsets from the injection season simultaneously.

Sources:IEA
Mentions:International Energy Agency →QatarEnergy →Ras Laffan Industrial City →Carnegie Endowment for International Peace →Japan →South Korea →Qatar →TTF →Equinor →Hammerfest LNG →Strait of Hormuz →JKM →LNG Prime →Strait of Hormuz Toll System →United Arab Emirates (UAE) →University of Oxford Institute for Energy Studies →
First Reported In

Update #3 · TTF holds six-week low as supply stack hardens

IEA· 17 Apr 2026
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Causes and effects
This Event
IEA logs Hormuz LNG loss at 2 bcm weekly
The primary multilateral estimate confirms the scale of the supply loss and anchors a mid-year return assumption that sits alongside the 90-day Qatari normalisation clock.
Led to
IRGC seizes Epaminondas and MSC Francesca
IEA April OMR quantified the Hormuz LNG loss at over 2 bcm per week, providing the baseline against which Iran's 18 April re-closure escalated supply risk.
Occurred 22 Apr 2026
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IEA pivots: Hormuz delay now multi-year, not mid-year
The IEA Q2 GMR multi-year delay revision directly supersedes the mid-year resumption base case published in the IEA April OMR tracked in ID:2526.
Occurred 25 Apr 2026
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Different Perspectives
Marine insurers and AIS trackers covering Hormuz
Marine insurers and AIS trackers covering Hormuz
AIS data shows severe curtailment on 20 July, 479 vessels anchored, 36 dark, 123 still broadcasting inside the strait, not the closure the IRGC claims. War-risk premiums move on the unresolved CENTCOM-IRGC contest itself, since underwriters price the dispute as much as the count.
QatarEnergy
QatarEnergy
Ras Laffan has run at minimum output under force majeure into August since 9 July, a constraint already priced before this week's claim. The 17-20 July move is risk premium stacked on that standing loss, not a new physical loss at the plant.
ACER and the European Commission
ACER and the European Commission
ACER opened the REMIT reporting consultation on schedule on 16 July, giving firms to 11 September before a quarter to build systems against Regulation 648/2012. Brussels' separate silence on StromVKG state-aid clearance leaves Berlin's own capacity mechanism without legal authorisation.
EDF and French grid operator RTE
EDF and French grid operator RTE
France's discount to Germany rests on an ASNR derogation from the 28C river-cooling limit at Bugey that expires today, not on a nuclear recovery; Chooz, Golfech and Bugey restarts run to 25 July. The cheap leg holds only as long as regulators keep waiving the limit each heatwave.
German CCGT operators and grid balancers
German CCGT operators and grid balancers
German gas plants went off-merit on 20 July as the clean spark spread inverted to minus EUR 15 to minus EUR 21/MWh, sidelining the flexible capacity storage injection needs. Operators are pricing 2027-28 capacity revenue against Bundesnetzagentur's own admission that Brussels has not cleared the 9 GW StromVKG auctions.
LNG spreads desk
LNG spreads desk
The JKM-TTF arb flipped to a TTF premium of roughly USD 0.6/MMBtu on 15 July, the first time this cycle Europe has outbid Asia, yet no Atlantic cargo has rerouted west. Until a cargo actually moves, the desk reads the Hormuz premium as unconfirmed and the EUR 55 print as vulnerable to a fast reversal.