Qatar steams empty LNG ships toward Hormuz as Iran draws a new line

Six empty liquefied natural gas carriers linked to Qatar were in the Gulf of Oman or heading there on 7 September, according to ship-tracking compiled by Bloomberg from Kpler and other feeds. A seventh empty ship had already crossed the Strait of Hormuz and was moving toward the Qatari coast. The movements are the first clear sign in weeks that QatarEnergy may be lining up hulls for a new export attempt through a waterway that has been a war zone since spring.

Qatar once supplied about a fifth of the world’s LNG. That share collapsed after Iranian missiles hit a Qatari facility in March and after two loaded tankers were struck in the strait, the Al Rekayyat in early July and the GasLog Shanghai weeks later. QatarEnergy declared force majeure on cargoes. Italian utility Edison alone has seen 24 shipments covering about 3 billion cubic metres placed under that clause through September. Doha told customers in June that it could restore about half of production within a month of safe transit, and about 80 percent within two months. Safe transit has not returned.

What has returned is a queue. Fifteen LNG carriers now sit idle on the Gulf side of Hormuz with Qatari gas on board. Two more were loading at Ras Laffan. Production inside Qatar has not gone to zero. Keeping trains warm is cheaper than a cold restart. The missing piece has been empty ships on the ocean side willing to enter the strait, load, and leave. Two empty tankers tried to cross in recent days and turned around. They are waiting near the eastern entrance.

The same Monday, Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said Tehran would announce a restricted zone outside the strait within days. He told state television the zone would start at the line of the U.S. naval blockade, run toward Hormuz, and continue into the Persian Gulf. Any ship that enters without coordinating with Iran, he said, goes on an Iranian sanctions list that would hit insurance and future passage. He also said Iran and Oman had agreed maps for a new corridor in Iranian and Omani waters, with Iran in charge of entry and exit. No coordinates were published.

Rezaei insisted the strait is “completely closed.” In the same interview he said seven or eight ships a day still pass, most of them carrying goods Iran itself needs, and that the United States is spending heavily to push five or six more through a route near Oman. He said those ships “usually” get hit. He added that Iran has not chosen to sink oil tankers because of the environmental cost. The admission matters. Traffic has not stopped. It has been reduced to a trickle that Tehran wants to license.

Oil exports through the Gulf have recovered faster than LNG. Gas is a different cargo. A laden LNG tanker is a floating pressure vessel. Insurers price it that way. After two strikes on Qatari-linked ships, the pool of owners willing to send an empty hull in has shrunk. That is why the six ships now pointing at Oman are a market event even before any of them loads at Ras Laffan.

Asian and European buyers have already shopped for replacement volumes. Prices remain high. A Qatari restart would ease both. It would also test Rezaei’s zone on the first week it exists. If the ships turn around again, the 15 idle cargoes stay where they are and force majeure letters get another month. If one loaded tanker clears the strait with its transponder on, as the Al Areesh did at the end of July on its way toward Port Qasim, other owners will look at the track and decide whether the risk has changed.

QatarEnergy has not issued a public sailing schedule that matches the Bloomberg count. Ship tracks are the available evidence. They show empty steel moving toward a closed door, on the same day the government that claims to hold the key promised a new line on the chart.