The gas side of Friday's reopening
Oil has grabbed every headline since the Strait of Hormuz shut in March. The bigger surprise may be on the gas side. When the strait reopens to shipping on Friday, it clears the way for Qatar to restart the single largest piece of the global gas trade.
Qatar's Ras Laffan complex shipped close to a fifth of the world's liquefied natural gas before the war. Every cargo sails through Hormuz. Qatar pulled the plant offline within days of Iran's opening strikes, and buyers from Europe to Japan have been hunting for replacement gas ever since.
How fast the gas comes back
QatarEnergy has given its customers a rough schedule. Once tankers can transit Hormuz safely again, the company expects to be running at roughly half its usual output a month later, and close to 80% after two.
The last stretch will take far longer. March missile strikes knocked out two of Qatar's production trains, and rebuilding that capacity is a job measured in years, not weeks. So Friday starts the clock. It does not flip a switch.
Qatar started laying the groundwork in April. Engineers ran equipment checks, cleared maintenance backlogs, and kept a handful of trains turning over at low rates to keep nearby customers supplied. The aim was to ramp quickly the moment the waterway cleared.
What it means for prices
The closure punished import-dependent regions. European LNG futures climbed to $14.80 per million British thermal units in late April, about 35% above pre-war levels. In Asia, the Japan-Korea Marker, the regional spot benchmark, jumped 51% to $16.02.
Those prices should ease as Qatari cargoes return, though not overnight. Analysts expect European and Asian spot prices to soften roughly six to eight weeks after the restart is underway, once tankers reach terminals and stockpiles begin to refill.
The US lives in a different world. Henry Hub, the American benchmark, trades near $3.19 per MMBtu, a fraction of the international price. America exports gas rather than importing it, so the Hormuz shock lifted what US cargoes fetched abroad without doing much to the price at home.
The catch
A reopening on paper is not the same as gas on the water. Roughly 500 tankers are queued to move through Hormuz, and LNG carriers will compete with crude tankers for pilots, insurance and safe lanes through recently mined waters. Crude traders have already looked past the war, with oil sliding to around $74, but physical gas moves slower than a futures screen.
For now, Friday marks the start of the recovery, not the end of the squeeze. Watch QatarEnergy's loading data over the next few weeks for the first real sign that the world's gas crunch is loosening.