Laden LNG tanker transits through the Strait of Hormuz averaged around 3 cargoes a day prior to the crisis, a flow that crashed to near zero in March following the outbreak of the Iranian-US conflict and stayed there through April.
A partial recovery was underway from May, gathering pace as a June 17 MOU agreed between the US and Iran gave the market enough confidence to start moving cargoes again. The sequencing is visible in the chart: laden vessels led the way, clearing tankers that had been sitting loaded in the Strait, while ballast vessels began repositioning at scale from mid to late June as Qatari loadings grew. Forward pricing through the end of winter was consistent with this de-escalation path as of late June.
That recovery has since gone into reverse. Following President Trump’s July 8 declaration that the ceasefire was over, both the laden and ballast 7-day moving averages collapsed back toward zero through most of July. Qatari loadings did remain slightly higher, in part to meet higher demand inside the Gulf into peak summer, but also as laden vessels at anchorage built. With a tentative uptick in Strait of Hormuz transits through early August, the market has begun to price in some relief over the past week, but it remains too early to say whether this is the start of a genuine reopening or another false start.
The halt through July has pushed global gas prices back towards Timera’s Sustained Disruption scenario for the balance of summer (which foresees partial loadings through September & Q4 before a return to normal through Q1’27). Winter prices remain below Timera’s Sustained Disruption outlook for now, suggesting the market is pricing in a resumption of normal loadings before the end of the year, but the risk is skewed firmly to the upside. European storage is entering the season depleted, and the longer the Strait stays shut, the further prices must climb up an increasingly inelastic portion of the demand curve to balance the market.
For more details on our global gas price outlook, please contact Luke Cottell at luke.cottell@timera-energy.com.
