As many as eight empty LNG carriers have arrived at the Ras Laffan hub in Qatar and are set to load on superchilled gas in the coming days, Bloomberg has reported. Another LNG carrier is approaching Qatar’s vast gas production complex and two more are on their way to the Strait of Hormuz, the publication also wrote, citing ship-tracking data.
The information is the latest piece of evidence that Qatar is eager to resume exporting liquefied gas, as stated earlier this week by the country’s prime minister. “Within a few weeks, production will come back to normal, except the damaged facility,” Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani told the Financial Times. “Our teams have been mobilised already for a few weeks. QatarEnergy is preparing for operations to come back to normal as soon as the situation in the strait normalises.”
Qatar was forced to declare force majeure on its liquefied natural gas exports when the U.S. and Israeli war with Iran broke out, following retaliatory Iranian strikes on Gulf states hosting U.S. military bases that were used to launch strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure. A solid chunk of Qatar’s gas processing capacity was damaged, with estimates at the time suggesting full repairs would take between two and five years.
Earlier this week, Qatar’s LNG hub suffered a deadly explosion that killed 13 people, injuring 66. Still, QatarEnergy remains quite confident it would restore normal operations at the complex by October.
Yet, it appears that the undamaged parts of Ras Laffan can roar back up to normal rather quickly, even if QatarEnergy has not officially lifted the force majeure on exports. Linked to these developments, the head of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum this week said if Hormuz remains open, gas markets will begin to stabilize in the third quarter of the year. By the fourth quarter, should traffic in the Persian Gulf remain free, gas markets should be rebalanced, Philip Mshelbila also said.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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