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European Energy Markets
31JUL

IEA logs Hormuz LNG loss at 2 bcm weekly

2 min read
09:44UTC

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.

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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) →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.
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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
Spain's LNG terminal operators
Spain's LNG terminal operators
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European Commission
European Commission
Brussels holds the bloc to 90% on a flexible window while Germany, holding roughly a quarter of EU storage capacity, tracks toward missing its own lower 80% figure by 21 points. A national shortfall this size in the anchor market matters more to bloc security than the flexible timetable alone can absorb.
French power exporters and CRE
French power exporters and CRE
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TTF trading desk
TTF trading desk
A visible national shortfall like Germany's 21-point gap is a directional signal, not noise, for a desk holding the summer-winter spread. TTF's flat EUR 58-60 range through this week's German price swings says the market has not yet chosen to reprice refill risk into the front of the curve.
German cavern and CCGT operators
German cavern and CCGT operators
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Slovakia
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