QatarEnergy Spent $1 Billion on Emergency US LNG After Ras Laffan Attacks Halted Exports
Kpler data show 33 US cargoes purchased at roughly $1 billion, replacing Qatari supply that stopped flowing after March attacks on the Ras Laffan industrial complex.
QatarEnergy purchased approximately 33 cargoes of US liquefied natural gas at a cost of roughly $1 billion, buying emergency supply to keep Asian customers served after attacks on Ras Laffan Industrial City effectively shut down the bulk of Qatar's own LNG exports, according to data reported on July 30 (2026-07-30).8
Kpler shipping data show 28 of those 33 cargoes have already reached their destinations, with remaining shipments en route to buyers in South Korea, Taiwan and India. QatarEnergy bought just four spot cargoes in the prior year, putting the scale of the emergency procurement in context.8
Around 80% of Qatar's LNG exports normally flow to Asian markets. That concentration meant the Ras Laffan outage landed directly on utilities and industrial buyers across East and South Asia, with no regional alternative capable of absorbing the shortfall at comparable scale.8
Three attacks on Ras Laffan Industrial City disabled Trains 4 and 6, cutting 12.8 million tonnes per annum of production capacity — around 17% of Qatar's total exports. QatarEnergy said on March 19 (2026-03-19) that repairs could cost the country roughly $20 billion a year in lost revenue and take up to five years to complete.4
QatarEnergy declared force majeure on LNG cargoes and extended the notice at least to mid-August, Reuters reported, citing Italy's Edison, which holds a long-term supply agreement covering 6.4 billion cubic metres annually. The last Qatari cargoes under that agreement arrived at end of March 2026 (2026-03-31). By late May (2026-05-26), 17 cargoes totalling around 2.2 billion cubic metres had accumulated under the force majeure claim, Gasworld reported.4,3
A second explosion struck Ras Laffan on Sunday, June 21 (2026-06-21), adding uncertainty to an already stretched repair timeline. Qatar had been calling back empty LNG carriers in preparation for a restart of exports around that time, OilPrice.com reported, suggesting some remedial work had progressed. The June blast complicated any projection of when meaningful volumes could resume.5
US LNG partially filled the gap. But analysts said it could not do so fully. An analyst quoted by Montel said US exporters were unlikely to increase capacity further in the short term to compensate for lost Qatari volumes, with deferring maintenance at US terminals the only realistic near-term lever, itself carrying operational risk. US LNG exports reached 15.1 Bcf/d in 2025, up 26% year-on-year and representing 26% of global supply, according to EIA data. That left little obvious room for additional surge production.1,6
Enverus Intelligence Research said the outage would shift the global gas market into structural deficit, in a statement sent to Rigzone, though no timing or magnitude was specified in the available material.2
JKM, the Asian LNG benchmark, was $22.94/MMBtu on August 26 (2026-08-26). ICE Endex TTF front-month was €65.63/MWh on August 26 (2026-08-26), down 1.31% on the session.
Qatar held 18.7% of global LNG trade in 2025, per the International Gas Union's World LNG Report 2026. The country's longer-term plan to expand production capacity from 77 million tonnes per annum to 142 mtpa by end of the decade depends on restoring Ras Laffan to full operation, a timeline now stretching well beyond original projections.7,8
The mid-August force majeure window has now closed. With Trains 4 and 6 requiring repairs that QatarEnergy estimated at up to five years, buyers holding Qatari long-term contracts face an extended period of substitute supply, and the June 21 (2026-06-21) explosion at Ras Laffan means even that five-year estimate may need revising upward.4,5