Qatar extends LNG force majeure to end-November, yet U.S. gas trades near $3 with storage 95 Bcf above normal
The world's second-largest LNG exporter has shipped a fraction of its usual cargoes since the Iran war. The shortage abroad has not reached U.S. prices, and that gap matters for anyone heating a building this winter.
QatarEnergy has extended force majeure on liquefied natural gas deliveries by another month, to the end of November, as tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz stays largely blocked, OilPrice.com reported, citing Bloomberg. Customers told of the extension include buyers in Bangladesh, Pakistan and India, and Italy's Edison, which said its own deliveries will not resume until early December. Reuters also reported the extension to Edison and some Asian clients.
The scale of the outage is large. Qatar, the world's second-largest LNG exporter before the war, managed 18 cargoes over six months against 509 in the same period a year earlier, according to ICIS data cited by Reuters, and has lost an estimated $24 billion in sales by Reuters' calculations last month, OilPrice reported. Monday's extension came the same day oil rose after President Trump rejected Iran's latest proposal to reopen the strait.
The thing the headline hides: U.S. gas is not scarce
A global LNG shortage sounds like it should mean expensive gas everywhere. At home, the primary data says otherwise:
| U.S. measure | Latest |
|---|---|
| Henry Hub spot price, Sept. 21 and 22 (EIA) | $2.93 and $2.90 per MMBtu |
| Henry Hub spot range, Sept. 14-18 (EIA) | $2.85 to $3.00 |
| Natural gas futures, Monday mid-morning (OilPrice board) | $3.080, down 3.6% |
| Working gas in storage, Sept. 18 (EIA) | 3,351 Bcf |
| vs. five-year average | 95 Bcf above |
| vs. a year ago | 146 Bcf below |
In the week to Sept. 18, the EIA's storage report showed a 53 Bcf injection, and total inventories sit inside the five-year range. Gas futures fell on Monday while Brent and WTI crude rose. The Qatar shortage is being absorbed mainly in Asia and Europe, where buyers compete for replacement cargoes, rather than in U.S. domestic prices.
Who that actually hits
The split between oil and gas prices is the practical story for business owners heading into winter. A diner, greenhouse or landlord heating with oil has been facing heating oil at about twice last year's price, as we worked through in what heating oil at twice last year's price means. A business on natural gas is, so far, looking at a commodity price near $3 with storage above its five-year norm. For a restaurant with gas ranges, a laundromat running gas dryers, or a manufacturer with gas-fired process heat, the fuel cost risk this winter looks far smaller than it does for oil-heated buildings, based on today's inventories.
Two caveats. Storage is 146 Bcf below last year, so the cushion is thinner than 2025's. And the retail price a business pays includes delivery and utility charges that move separately from the Henry Hub commodity price.
What to watch
The EIA's next storage report on Oct. 1, the size of the last few injections before heating season, and whether Qatar's force majeure is extended again past November. A reopening of Hormuz would ease pressure on overseas buyers first; a longer closure keeps the gap between global and U.S. gas prices wide. For crude, see our oil chart.
Sources: OilPrice.com; Reuters; EIA Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report; EIA Henry Hub spot prices. This is market information, not investment advice.
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