QatarEnergy extended Force majeure in the week to Monday 28 September 20261. It told Pakistan, Bangladesh and an Indian buyer that liquefied natural gas cargo cancellations would run through November, and told Italy's Edison that its deliveries stay suspended into early December2. Force majeure is the contract clause that lets a seller stop delivering, without paying damages, when something outside its control prevents it.
The shipping went the other way. At least four loaded Qatar-linked carriers crossed the Strait of Hormuz with Ras Laffan cargoes in the second half of September, against no visible crossings in August3. Kpler's trackers cannot give a true count, because some ships cross with their transponders off, so four is a floor rather than a total. The ships moved and the contracts did not.
Qatar shipped 18 cargoes in the first six months of this war against 509 in the same months a year earlier4, so the suspension is not a negotiating posture over a small shortfall. Ras Laffan itself has run at reduced capacity since it was attacked in March 2026. Qatar had publicly rejected an American forecast of its recovery nine days before this extension. Is the binding limit now loading capacity at the plant rather than the risk of the crossing? The vessel movements point that way, and QatarEnergy did not answer a request for comment5, so the question stands unanswered rather than settled.
The distinction decides who can plan a winter. A ceasefire reopens supply within weeks when a blocked crossing caused the halt. Damaged trains at Ras Laffan instead hand the schedule to engineers, and a buyer in Karachi or Dhaka holding a cancelled November cargo then waits on construction rather than on diplomacy.
