Qatar has ramped up liquefied natural gas tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz to the highest in more than two months, a sign it’s becoming more comfortable moving ships through the waterway.
At least two laden carriers have been sent outbound through the narrow strait in the last week, while at least two moved in the opposite direction to enter the Persian Gulf, according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg. One of the shipments is on its way to India’s west coast.
No signals were detected from the four vessels when they traversed Hormuz, but jamming and interference is common in the area, complicating efforts to ascertain the exact location of ships.
State-owned QatarEnergy didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The movements mark the most sustained increase in Qatari LNG tanker activity since early July, when the country largely halted exports through the strait after one of its vessels was attacked. Before the war, Hormuz handled about a fifth of global LNG supply, but transits have become perilous due to numerous strikes on ships.
Traffic remains far below pre-war levels of roughly three LNG shipments a day, but any increase could help ease a global gas supply crunch. Prices in Europe and Asia have surged to the highest levels since 2022 over the last few weeks as demand builds in the run-up to winter.
Qatar may also be following the strategies of Persian Gulf oil producers, who have been sending significant volumes of crude through Hormuz. They have embraced a tactic known as shuttling, where they send cargoes through the waterway often on their own ships, before loading the shipments to other vessels in the Gulf of Oman. That’s more challenging for LNG, however, due to the technical difficulties of transferring the super-chilled fuel.
The country has been loading LNG onto available empty tankers inside the gulf, and has also exported some fuel to Kuwait, to manage storage and keep parts of its massive export complex running at minimum levels. Maintaining some output allows QatarEnergy to keep equipment operational and gives it the flexibility to quickly increase output.
Qatar’s Ras Laffan plant – the largest LNG export facility in the world – can resume operations at undamaged parts of the facility “within a couple of weeks” when Hormuz reopens, Energy Minister Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi said at the Qatar Economic Forum in New York on Sunday.
source: rigzone.com