Qatar says Iran strikes cut 17% of Ras Laffan LNG capacity, boosting the pull on US exports

Qatar says Iran strikes cut 17% of Ras Laffan LNG capacity, boosting the pull on US exports A multi-year hit to a fifth of global LNG supply strengthens demand for US cargoes, but record production and high storage cap the upside in US gas prices. July Nymex natural gas settled up 1.07% on Friday (2026-06-12), recovering part of Thursday's (2026-06-11) 3.08% slide, after Qatar said Iranian strikes had damaged 17% of Ras Laffan's LNG export capacity.⁶ The plant matters well beyond the Gulf. Ras Laffan handles roughly 20% of global liquefied natural gas supply, and Qatar said the repairs would take three to five years.⁶ A loss of that size and duration tightens the seaborne LNG balance and strengthens the pull on the one large exporter with room to ship more cargoes, the United States.⁶ US export terminals are already running hot. Estimated net feedgas flows to US LNG plants reached 19.1 bcf/day on Friday (2026-06-12), up 11.9% week-on-week, according to BNEF.⁶ A persistent gap in Qatari output would keep that number climbing. Set against that pull is a well-supplied home market. The EIA reported gas inventories rose 108 bcf in the week ended June 5, above the 100 bcf the market expected, and that print drove Thursday's (2026-06-11) 3.08% sell-off before Friday's (2026-06-12) bounce.⁶ Supply keeps growing. Lower-48 dry gas production ran at 111.7 bcf/day on Friday (2026-06-12), 4.2% higher than a year earlier, BNEF data show.⁶ The EIA forecasts Lower-48 marketed production will rise 3% this year, led by the Permian at 29.2 bcf/d and Haynesville growth of 6%, with both regions accelerating into next year.³ Demand is firm too. Lower-48 gas consumption was 75.9 bcf/day on Friday (2026-06-12), up 9.1% year-on-year, BNEF data show.⁶ The Edison Electric Institute reported on Wednesday (2026-06-10) that US power output in the week ended June 6 rose 2.13% from a year earlier to 83,866 GWh, a sign that summer cooling load is building.⁶ A Gulf supply shock does not move US gas prices one-for-one, and the reason is geography. European and Asian gas prices have diverged from US prices since the February 28 closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the EIA noted.⁵ Qatari cargoes leave through that same strait, so the plant and its export route sit behind one chokepoint, and the transmission to US prices runs through export demand, not a shared price.⁵ NYMEX Henry Hub front-month has held near $3, up from the sub-$3 stretch of a month earlier.² By Friday (2026-05-15), the June Nymex contract had settled at $2.96, a gain of about 7.4% on the week, as hotter forecasts and resilient LNG exports lifted it.² Forecasts split on where it goes from here. The EIA expects the Henry Hub spot price to average just under $3.50 per MMBtu this year, while Morgan Stanley has argued prices could surge to $5 per MMBtu.⁴ The bank's call is a single bullish outlier against a base case built on record production.⁴ The storage cushion is the brake. By late May (2026-05-21), inventories were running about 141 bcf above year-ago levels, roughly 8% higher.¹ That overhang limits how far a foreign LNG outage can lift a domestic market swimming in its own gas.¹ What decides the next leg is arithmetic. If Qatar's three-to-five-year repair window holds and US feedgas demand keeps grinding higher, the export pull eventually outruns the build in Lower-48 supply.⁶ If injections stay heavy and production keeps setting records, the Ras Laffan premium stays trapped offshore in European TTF and Asian JKM.³ The number to track week to week is feedgas flow against the EIA storage print.⁶