How much has Gulf LNG supply actually fallen, and how confident is that number?

OilPrice.com reports about 26 cargoes left the Gulf since disruption began around February 28, versus a typical 90-100 a month — a roughly 70-75% drop. That cargo count is attributed to trade-flow tracking rather than an official OPEC or EIA release, so treat it as a reported estimate, not confirmed customs data.

Who is most exposed if the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb stay disrupted?

Asia takes roughly 90% of Middle East LNG shipments, per the cited reporting, with India alone normally sourcing about 60% of its LNG from Qatar and the UAE. Europe is less exposed on volume — 7-11% of its LNG imports come from the region — but is more exposed on price, since it competes with Asia for the same marginal cargo.

Does the coal-and-oil-switching narrative hold up?

Partially. Demand destruction is confirmed in the sense that imports are down in several markets — Pakistan sharply, South Korea and China more modestly — but the article does not present hard confirmed data on how much of that gap is being filled by coal or fuel oil specifically, versus simple demand rationing or storage drawdown. That substitution volume should be labeled an inference, not a confirmed fact, until national statistics agencies or the IEA publish fuel-mix data.

Is the Ras Laffan outage the same as the Pearl GTL outage?

No. QatarEnergy reportedly estimates Ras Laffan Trains 4 and 6 will stay down for three to five years, sidelining about 12.8 million tonnes a year of LNG capacity. Pearl GTL Train 2 is a separate facility whose co-owners, QatarEnergy and Shell, reportedly estimate a much shorter, roughly one-year repair outage. Treating them as one multi-year figure misstates Pearl GTL's timeline by a factor of three to five.

Gulf LNG Loadings Run at a Quarter of Normal

Reported Gulf LNG cargo counts have collapsed to roughly 26 since February 28, against a typical 90-100 a month, while Dutch and Asian gas benchmarks have jumped to multi-year highs. The scarcity is real, but the framing of buyers fleeing wholesale to coal and oil deserves a harder look at the numbers.

Gulf LNG cargo loadings have fallen to an estimated 26 since disruption began around February 28, versus a typical 90-100 a month, per OilPrice.com citing S&P Global Platts and ICIS data. Dutch TTF briefly exceeded €60/MWh and Platts JKM approached the mid-$25s per MMBtu, the highest since December 2022. This is analysis, not trading advice.

The Gulf Barrel Desk July 22, 2026 Updated July 22, 2026 · 5 min read

Gulf LNG loadings have dropped to an estimated 26 cargoes since roughly February 28, against a typical 90-100 per month, per Platts and ICIS data cited by OilPrice.com.
Dutch TTF briefly traded above €60/MWh, matching the peak level seen at the start of the US-Iran conflict per the cited reporting, while Platts JKM approached the mid-$25s per MMBtu, its highest level since December 2022.
Demand destruction is uneven: Pakistan's LNG imports are reported down roughly 75%, while South Korea (-10%) and China (-8%) show smaller year-on-year declines.
Two separate outage estimates are in play, not one: QatarEnergy puts Ras Laffan Trains 4 and 6 at about 12.8 million tonnes a year of sidelined capacity for three to five years, while Pearl GTL Train 2's co-owners, QatarEnergy and Shell, separately estimate a roughly one-year outage for that unit — collapsing the two overstates how long Pearl GTL stays down.
S&P Global's James Taverner reportedly cut projected 2026 global LNG supply growth from about 11% to roughly 1% year-on-year, which — if it holds — is the figure that matters more than any single day's price spike.

The number that matters is the cargo count, not the price spike: OilPrice.com reports roughly 26 LNG cargoes have left the Gulf since disruption began around February 28, against a typical 90-100 a month. That is a supply story first and a price story second. Dutch TTF briefly topped €60/MWh and Platts JKM pushed into the mid-$25s per MMBtu, both multi-month or multi-year highs, but those prices are the symptom. The disease is a reported 70-75% drop in physical loadings out of a region that supplies roughly 90% of Asia's LNG imports and 7-11% of Europe's. This is analysis, not trading advice.

What repriced overnight

Dutch TTF's move above €60/MWh and JKM's climb from about $15 per MMBtu in early May to a reported $21.35 — with intraday levels approaching the mid-$25s, per S&P Global Platts reporting cited by OilPrice.com — reflect the same mechanism: buyers bidding for a shrinking pool of spot cargoes as Gulf loadings fall. TTF's move was described in the cited reporting as nearing the peak seen at the start of the US-Iran conflict, not as a fixed calendar-based high, and JKM's approach toward the mid-$25s would mark its highest level since December 2022, when Europe's post-invasion scramble for LNG last drove comparable spikes.

Why the wire's framing needs a caveat

The reported narrative — buyers pivoting wholesale to coal and fuel oil — is plausible but not fully evidenced in the cited reporting. What is more directly supported is demand destruction: Pakistan's LNG imports are reported down roughly 75% year-on-year, South Korea's down about 10%, and China's down about 8%. Falling imports are consistent with switching to other fuels, but they are equally consistent with rationing, storage drawdown, or demand simply going unmet. This piece also draws on a single outlet, OilPrice.com, whose article in turn attributes figures to S&P Global Platts, ICIS and Guardian reporting; those are pass-through credentialings this desk has not independently verified, and readers should weigh them accordingly until national energy agencies or the IEA publish confirmed fuel-mix data.

Who is actually short barrels of LNG

Asia carries the volume exposure — about 90% of Middle East LNG shipments go there, with India alone normally sourcing roughly 60% of its LNG from Qatar and the UAE, per the cited reporting. Europe's direct volume exposure is smaller, at a reported 7-11% of its LNG imports, but its storage cushion is already thinner: European gas storage stood at under 54% full versus 64% at the same point a year earlier, a gap that raises winter-shortage risk even without a large direct supply loss from the Gulf.

The capacity math behind the supply-growth downgrade

The more durable figure in the reporting is S&P Global's reported downgrade of projected global LNG supply growth from about 11% to roughly 1% year-on-year, attributed to James Taverner, the firm's executive director for global gas and LNG research. That downgrade is linked to two separate, differently timed outages: QatarEnergy reportedly estimates Ras Laffan Trains 4 and 6 will sideline about 12.8 million tonnes a year of capacity for three to five years, while Pearl GTL Train 2's co-owners, QatarEnergy and Shell, separately estimate a roughly one-year repair outage for that unit. Collapsing the two into a single multi-year figure would overstate Pearl GTL's downtime by three to five times — both estimates, not confirmed engineering timelines.

What to watch next

Three reported signals will show whether this is a spike or a structural shift: whether Gulf cargo counts recover toward the 90-100/month baseline as security conditions allow, whether Platts' Asia MOC market — where physical transactions reportedly rose 77% year-on-year and derivatives volumes 251% — keeps showing that kind of hedging intensity, and whether European storage closes the gap to last year's 64% fill rate before peak winter draw. None of this is a call on price direction; it is a list of the data points that will confirm or contradict the current framing. This is analysis, not advice.

How much has Gulf LNG supply actually fallen, and how confident is that number?: OilPrice.com reports about 26 cargoes left the Gulf since disruption began around February 28, versus a typical 90-100 a month — a roughly 70-75% drop. That cargo count is attributed to trade-flow tracking rather than an official OPEC or EIA release, so treat it as a reported estimate, not confirmed customs data.
Who is most exposed if the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb stay disrupted?: Asia takes roughly 90% of Middle East LNG shipments, per the cited reporting, with India alone normally sourcing about 60% of its LNG from Qatar and the UAE. Europe is less exposed on volume — 7-11% of its LNG imports come from the region — but is more exposed on price, since it competes with Asia for the same marginal cargo.
Does the coal-and-oil-switching narrative hold up?: Partially. Demand destruction is confirmed in the sense that imports are down in several markets — Pakistan sharply, South Korea and China more modestly — but the article does not present hard confirmed data on how much of that gap is being filled by coal or fuel oil specifically, versus simple demand rationing or storage drawdown. That substitution volume should be labeled an inference, not a confirmed fact, until national statistics agencies or the IEA publish fuel-mix data.
Is the Ras Laffan outage the same as the Pearl GTL outage?: No. QatarEnergy reportedly estimates Ras Laffan Trains 4 and 6 will stay down for three to five years, sidelining about 12.8 million tonnes a year of LNG capacity. Pearl GTL Train 2 is a separate facility whose co-owners, QatarEnergy and Shell, reportedly estimate a much shorter, roughly one-year repair outage. Treating them as one multi-year figure misstates Pearl GTL's timeline by a factor of three to five.

LNG Supply Crisis Pushes Buyers Toward Coal and Oil — OilPrice.com