After Oil, Gas Caught in the Crosswinds of US-Iranian Confrontations
The escalating confrontations in the Strait of Hormuz, and their expansion to target oil and gas tankers and commodity vessels with US and Iranian strikes, pushed average daily transits down to around ten ships on Sunday, September 6, 2026, marking their lowest level since May. The deliberate targeting of commercial tankers serves as an instrument of economic pressure, after earlier strikes by both sides were confined to military targets, making tankers and other commercial vessels, and behind them the global economy, a target of these strikes today.
On Saturday, September 5, 2026, US forces targeted three Iranian oil tankers, including one near Kharg Island, Iran's main oil export hub, following attacks launched by Iran on US warships in the region. In return, Iran retaliated by targeting three oil tankers taking routes it had not approved, in addition to three US ships in various areas.
The widening scope of targeting to include commercial vessels, both energy tankers and commercial cargo ships, has raised the level of risk facing Iranian or Iran-linked energy shipments, as well as US-affiliated vessels or those escorted by US forces while transiting the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman, placing commercial shipping at the heart of the confrontation between the two sides.
The resumption of military confrontation between the United States and Iran since early September, following a period of relative calm, has raised growing fears of worsening disruptions to energy shipments passing through the strait. The repercussions of disrupted navigation in this strategic corridor are not limited to the oil trade alone, but extend directly to liquefied natural gas supplies.
Liquefied natural gas exports from the Arabian Gulf have fallen to levels far below what they were before the outbreak of the war, when they stood at around three shipments a day. Gas tankers have deliberately stopped broadcasting their location-tracking signals while sailing through the strait since the Iranian attack on a Qatari vessel in early July, in an attempt to reduce the risk of being targeted.
Liquefied natural gas flows through the strait had neared a virtual standstill even before the latest escalation of military hostilities, increasing pressure on global gas markets and pushing importing countries to seek alternative sources that do not rely on supplies coming from the Middle East. This applies in particular to Europe, which relies increasingly on liquefied gas imports from the Arabian Gulf region to offset declining Russian gas supplies.
These developments grow all the more serious as the European Union approaches winter, at a time when gas inventories are suffering from a sharp decline due to the steep drop in the number of shipments transiting the Strait of Hormuz. European storage levels currently do not exceed around 65 percent capacity, the lowest level reached at this time of year in at least fifteen years, and well below the average of the past five years of around 82 percent.
Conversely, despite the mounting risks, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates continue to dispatch shipments of liquefied gas through the Strait of Hormuz to their customers around the world. After QatarEnergy extended the force majeure imposed on its shipments bound for Europe and Asia due to the current escalation, Qatar is moving today toward a bolder stance, with six of its empty tankers returning in preparation to resume its exports through the strait.
For its part, the United Arab Emirates, through the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), continues to transport energy supplies, particularly crude oil and liquefied natural gas, despite the persistent risk of Iranian attacks. Last month, a gas tanker owned by the company transferred its cargo to another vessel outside Hormuz, in a move through which it succeeded in exporting an additional volume of its output across the Arabian Gulf.
These disruptions come at a time when global gas demand reached a record high in 2025 of around 4,202 billion cubic meters, according to the "Global Gas Report 2026," an increase of 69 billion cubic meters, or 1.7 percent year on year. This rise was driven by the expanded use of gas for heating purposes in the residential and commercial sectors, with heating consumption increasing by the equivalent of 32 billion cubic meters, while industrial sector consumption rose by around 20 billion cubic meters.
The report, published on August 26, 2026, notes that rising demand for gas coincided with growing investments across various segments of the gas industry, particularly the expansion of gas liquefaction plants and storage facilities. These investments have helped strengthen the market's capacity to absorb part of the fallout from the multifaceted energy crisis during 2026, compared with the severe disruptions that followed the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022.
Amid growing global demand for natural gas, the escalation in recent confrontations between the United States and Iran, and the continued enforcement of sanctions on Russian gas over the war on Ukraine, gas prices in Europe have jumped to their highest levels since January 2023. Developments on the ground also reinforce fears that disruptions to energy supplies coming from the Arabian Gulf region will continue for the foreseeable future.
Competition is currently intensifying between Europe and Asia for liquefied natural gas cargoes available in the global market, after European prices rose by more than 70 percent compared with their levels in early July. Keeping prices at these levels would bolster Europe's ability to attract more shipments, but puts it in fiercer competition with Asian buyers and opens the door to a new wave of rising energy and production costs. Thus, the stability of the global gas market remains contingent on the course of the confrontation in the Strait of Hormuz, and the ability of the parties concerned to spare this vital corridor further escalation.
It is clear from the above that continued escalation in the Strait of Hormuz no longer threatens oil supplies alone, but now puts the liquefied natural gas trade to an exceedingly difficult test, at a time when global demand is rising and competition between Europe and Asia for available shipments is intensifying. Prolonging the confrontation would lead to further increases in energy prices and in production and transport costs, and push importing countries to accelerate the diversification of their supply sources and routes.
Accordingly, the stability of global gas markets remains contingent on containing the confrontation and sparing vital maritime corridors the fallout of the conflict, as any prolonged disruption to maritime traffic, with threats also extending to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait after Hormuz, could turn the current supply disruption into a wide-scale global energy crisis, early signs of which have emerged with rising oil prices touching 100 US dollars after Brent crude futures climbed at dawn on Wednesday, September 9, 2026.
Translated from Arabic with AI. Read it in Arabic