Bangladesh Locks In TotalEnergies LNG to Bridge Qatari Supply Gap
An 18-cargo deal priced at a $0.06/MMBtu premium to JKM covers a 570,000-tonne monthly shortfall but commits Dhaka to near-spot costs through June 2027.
Bangladesh agreed Friday (2026-09-11) to purchase 18 LNG cargoes from TotalEnergies for delivery between October 2026 and June 2027, priced at a premium of $0.06 per MMBtu over the JKM benchmark. The purchase is structured to cover the 570,000 tonnes per month of Qatari contracted supply that Bangladesh has lost since Middle East conflict disrupted Qatar's export programme.6
JKM spot was trading at $24.81 per MMBtu on Friday (2026-09-11). That makes Bangladesh's effective committed cost just above that benchmark for the nine-month delivery window — expensive for an economy where domestic gas tariffs remain heavily subsidised and where the power sector has limited capacity to absorb elevated import costs.6
The scale of the gap Dhaka is trying to fill puts the deal in sharper relief. Bangladesh's total natural gas supply runs at around 2,336 million cubic feet per day, with regasified LNG providing around 711 mmcfd of that total, according to The Financial Express. A monthly Qatari shortfall of 570,000 tonnes leaves generators and heavy industry competing for supply that was never priced into budget cycles at current levels.5
Qatar's LNG shipments entered force majeure as conflict escalated in the Middle East, with export capacity recovery uncertain beyond mid-August, according to earlier reporting. For South Asian buyers without the balance-sheet depth of Japanese or Korean utilities, waiting on spot tenders has meant either going without cargoes or paying elevated prices in a market already thinned by Gulf supply disruption.2
The TotalEnergies arrangement reflects who currently has uncommitted volume to offer. US LNG exports hit record levels in 2026, with more than 73 million tonnes shipped in the first seven months of the year, up 23% from a year earlier, as American exporters absorbed demand displaced from Middle Eastern routes, according to industry data.4 New export capacity, including Golden Pass LNG Train 1 and additional trains at Corpus Christi Stage 3, added roughly 0.9 billion cubic feet per day in April alone, per EIA data. TotalEnergies, with access to US and other non-Hormuz supply chains, has the volume to fulfil the schedule.1
Bangladesh has been working to reduce its dependence on any single supplier. Petrobangla invited applications in recent months to expand its registered spot supplier list, citing limited engagement from its 27 enrolled counterparties, The Financial Express reported. The TotalEnergies deal is a term arrangement rather than a spot purchase, removing one source of procurement uncertainty. But the $0.06-over-JKM pricing structure means Dhaka carries full benchmark price risk across the October-to-June window.5,6
Wood Mackenzie expects Asia Pacific LNG demand to recover to 279 million tonnes in 2027 and reach 297 million tonnes by 2028, as geopolitical risk subsides and new regas infrastructure comes online. How quickly that translates into higher JKM prices depends on Chinese and South Asian demand recovery, nuclear restart timelines in Japan and South Korea, and the pace at which alternative supply routes gain commercial traction. Bangladesh will be buying inside that window on a floating-price basis.3
JKM at $24.81 per MMBtu on Friday (2026-09-11) makes the TotalEnergies deal workable at current prices. Sustained upward pressure from Northeast Asian winter demand or renewed Hormuz constraints could push Dhaka's effective import costs materially higher before June 2027. How far the Qatari disruption extends beyond the mid-August force majeure timeline, and whether any partial resumption reaches South Asian buyers before October deliveries begin, sets the price context for the entire arrangement.6,2