Skip to content
European Energy Markets
17APR

IEA logs Hormuz LNG loss at 2 bcm weekly

2 min read
12:44UTC

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.

← Back to TTF holds six-week low as supply stack hardensJump to analysis ↓
EconomyDeveloping
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
Read original →
Different Perspectives
Germany
Germany
Germany holds the EU's largest storage estate but entered injection season at 23.32% fill with a 4.3 TWh/day injection ceiling that physically prevents any sprint recovery; the Bundeswirtschaftsministerium has maintained its early warning stage since July 2025. An escalation to Alarmstufe, which would trigger compulsory injection obligations, remains live if storage fails to rise through April.
QatarEnergy
QatarEnergy
QatarEnergy declared force majeure on European LNG contracts citing Ras Laffan strike damage, while the Gulf Research Centre assessed the declaration may also reflect a commercial decision to reallocate volumes toward higher-priced Asian spot markets without triggering breach penalties. Independent engineering confirmation of damage extent has not been published, leaving legal and commercial uncertainty unresolved.
Equinor / Norway
Equinor / Norway
Norway remains the EU's largest pipeline gas supplier and benefits from sustained elevated TTF; Norwegian pipeline capacity has partially offset the Russian supply loss but cannot close the structural gap. Norway Zone 4 power prices at EUR 2/MWh on 13 April illustrate how hydro-dominated systems are structurally decoupled from the gas price shock affecting continental Europe.
Italy
Italy
Italy cleared day-ahead power at EUR 133/MWh on 13 April, four to five times the Iberian equivalent, because gas-fired plants set the marginal price for approximately 90% of generation hours. Italy's circa 40 GW of gas-fired CCGT capacity, built when gas was cheap and nuclear was politically blocked, is now a structural liability at EUR 47/MWh TTF.
Spain
Spain
Spain cleared at EUR 29/MWh on the same day Italy paid EUR 133/MWh, the starkest single-day demonstration that its renewable energy investment is translating directly into price shock insulation for industry. Iberian interconnector constraints at the Pyrenees mean Spain cannot export this advantage to northern European markets at scale.
Japan and South Korea
Japan and South Korea
Japan and South Korea are competing with Europe for the same Atlantic LNG cargoes as Ras Laffan tightens global supply; their long-term contract portfolios provide partial insulation but leave both exposed on spot volumes. Bruegel proposed a trilateral buyer coalition representing 60% of global LNG demand, but Tokyo and Seoul have not formally responded.