Equinor Targets 15 Million Tonnes of LNG as Qatar Force Majeure Extends to November
Qatar's Hormuz blockade has cut roughly 20% of global LNG supply, leaving Europe 17 percentage points below its five-year storage average with winter weeks away.
The Japan-Korea Marker for spot LNG deliveries stood at $27.22 per million British thermal units on Thursday (2026-09-17), roughly 16% above the $23.388 that traders reported to Bloomberg on Friday (2026-08-28), when Qatar confirmed it was extending force majeure on Hormuz-transiting LNG cargoes through November. ICE Endex TTF front-month gas was at €78.17 per megawatt-hour in Wednesday's session (2026-09-16), down 2.4%, yet still above the €69 at which it traded when that announcement landed.5
Equinor, according to a report by OilPrice.com published Friday (2026-08-28), plans to expand its international LNG supply to 15 million tonnes, positioning itself among the non-Gulf suppliers that buyers have turned to since Qatar halted exports after attacks on its Ras Laffan liquefaction facilities in the Iran conflict.5,3
The supply gap is not abstract. Europe entered the pre-winter period with gas storage sites barely 63% full in the week of August 24 (2026-08-24), against a five-year average of around 80%, OilPrice.com reported. A Qatari force majeure running through November narrows the window for recovery further.5
The original disruption removed more than 10 billion cubic feet per day of global LNG supply, roughly 20% of worldwide volumes, most of it from Qatar's Ras Laffan terminal, according to EIA data. U.S. LNG terminals absorbed a large share of the resulting demand: utilization climbed to 94% of Department of Energy-approved export levels in March, up from 91% and an estimated 17.3 Bcf/d in February, EIA data show.1
That surge in U.S. export demand did not lift domestic prices. NYMEX Henry Hub front-month gas was at $2.91 per MMBtu on Thursday (2026-09-17), and EIA data show the benchmark fell roughly 9% after the Hormuz closure on February 28 (2026-02-28), as ample domestic storage and supply offset the export pull. The Atlantic LNG arbitrage has been the mechanism routing U.S. molecules toward elevated international markets, not a driver of higher domestic prices.1
QatarEnergy did not wait for non-Qatari supply to fill the gap. The state producer bought roughly 33 U.S. LNG cargoes valued at approximately $1 billion in total, a sharp increase from the four spot cargoes it purchased the previous year, to keep Asian customers supplied, according to Kpler shipping data. Twenty-eight of the 33 cargoes had reached their destinations by late July (2026-07-30), with the remainder en route to buyers in South Korea, Taiwan and India.4
A single cargo hinted at a possible easing on Tuesday (2026-09-01), when the Qatari LNG tanker Al Marrouna was spotted in the Gulf of Oman, the first Qatari vessel to exit through Hormuz since July, NewsBytesApp reported on Monday (2026-09-07). Force majeure holds regardless. Around 80% of Qatar's LNG is typically bound for Asian markets, and one tanker does not close the supply deficit that has pushed JKM above $27 per MMBtu.6,4
Oman, Nigeria, Angola and the United States stepped in to compensate for lost Qatari and UAE volumes during the disruption. India's LNG imports recovered to 1.95 million tonnes in April from 1.67 million tonnes in March, Kpler data show, as buyers diversified away from Hormuz-exposed cargoes.2
TTF's 2.4% drop in Wednesday's session (2026-09-16) reflects some of that diversification already priced in, alongside seasonal demand patterns. The market is not ignoring the storage deficit; it is weighing near-term supply rerouting against the likelihood that the November force majeure deadline holds rather than extends again.5
Equinor's 15 million tonne target is a bet that the supply deficit persists long enough to justify expansion. New supply from non-Gulf producers cannot reach buyers before winter demand peaks. Whether the Al Marrouna transit on Tuesday (2026-09-01) proves the start of a gradual Hormuz reopening or remains an isolated event is the signal JKM and TTF traders will be tracking through the fourth quarter.5,6