One Qatari LNG Cargo Cleared Hormuz and the Next One Turned Around — the Restart Isn't Real Yet

One Qatari LNG Cargo Cleared Hormuz and the Next One Turned Around — the Restart Isn't Real Yet A single tanker's "milestone" crossing was hailed as a turning point, but the following vessel's U-turn and skeptical analysts say Qatari LNG flows haven't actually resumed. QatarEnergy shipped its first LNG vessel through the Strait of Hormuz since the start of the US-Israeli war with Iran, with vessel-tracking data showing the laden Al Kharaitiyat — carrying 216,200 cubic metres of LNG — completing the passage in what one analyst called an "important milestone."¹ The crossing matters because Hormuz is the only maritime exit for Qatar's gas, and any sign of flows resuming through it speaks directly to whether the world's largest LNG suppliers can reach Europe and Asia again.¹ The milestone was undercut almost immediately. A second vessel carrying Qatari LNG, the Mihzem, laden with 178,000 cubic metres, appeared to make a U-turn while attempting to cross the strait, vessel data showed the next day.² One cargo through followed by one cargo turning back is not a reopening; it is a test that produced a mixed result, and the reversal says more about the risk calculus than the single successful transit did.² Analysts are explicit that sustained flows are not coming yet. Further vessels laden with LNG in the Persian Gulf are unlikely to pass through the Strait of Hormuz while there is no effective regional ceasefire, despite the recent crossing.⁵ That assessment reframes the milestone as an exception rather than a trend, and it puts the condition for a genuine restart squarely on the diplomacy, not on any single ship's successful run.⁵ The cautious probing of the waterway shows how tentative the situation is. A non-laden, or ballast, LNG vessel had earlier edged close to the strait, raising the prospect of a first west-to-east crossing by such a vessel since the war began.⁶ Empty ships testing the route before laden ones commit is the behavior of operators who do not yet trust the strait, and it underlines that the crossings so far are probes rather than a resumed trade.⁶ The stakes are large because the war already removed a chunk of Qatari supply. QatarEnergy's chief executive Saad al-Kaabi said the Iran attack took out 17% of the country's LNG export capacity.³ With a significant share of capacity already offline and the export route through Hormuz only intermittently usable, the supply available to the seaborne market is constrained from both the production and the transit side at once.³ The price record shows where the strain has landed. Natural gas prices in Europe and Asia have diverged from those in the United States since the February 28 closure of the Strait of Hormuz, with European TTF futures rising as the continent lost access to flexible Gulf cargoes.⁴ The US, insulated by its own production and export terminals, has not seen the same move, and that divergence is the clearest market signal that Hormuz remains a binding constraint on global LNG.⁴ For traders the contrarian read is the important one. The "milestone" headline invites the conclusion that Qatari LNG is flowing again, but the U-turn, the analyst skepticism and the ballast-vessel probing all point the other way — the strait is open enough for the occasional cargo and closed enough that no one is counting on it.^2,5 Pricing a restart off one successful transit would be pricing a trend that the next vessel already contradicted.¹ The signal to watch is whether laden Qatari vessels begin crossing in consistent numbers rather than one at a time, and whether a regional ceasefire materializes to make that durable.⁵ Until then, the divergence between European and US gas prices stays the live indicator of how much Qatari LNG the market is actually getting through Hormuz — which, for now, is very little.⁴