The closure of the Strait of Hormuz in March has already halved the combined liquefied natural gas output of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, and the International Energy Agency now calculates that the cumulative loss to global LNG supplies between 2026 and 2030 will amount to some 120 billion cubic metres. That figure, equivalent to roughly 15 per cent of the supply expected worldwide over that period, represents the most tangible consequence yet of the widening Middle Eastern conflict on the world’s energy architecture. The IEA’s quarterly gas market report, released on Friday, stresses that the disruption is not merely a short-term shock; it has also frozen capacity expansion at a moment when the industry was poised to bring a wave of new liquefaction plants online.

Viewed from London, where European energy security remains a preoccupation two years after the worst of the Russia-Ukraine crisis, the timing could hardly be worse. Europe had banked on a steady increase in Qatari and Emirati LNG to replace the Russian pipeline gas it jettisoned in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine. The IEA’s forecast makes plain that any relief from new projects in North America, Africa or elsewhere will arrive too late to compensate for the immediate gap, meaning that spot prices are likely to remain elevated through at least 2027. For Asian importers, notably India and Japan, the situation is equally fraught: the Strait’s closure has already forced some buyers to scramble for cargoes from the Atlantic basin, driving up shipping rates and tightening a market that was already unusually stressed.

In Washington, officials are watching the IEA’s numbers with a mixture of alarm and calculation. The United States has become the world’s largest LNG exporter, and American producers stand to benefit from the price surge in the short term. Yet the administration is acutely aware that sustained high energy costs could erode the competitive edge of US manufacturing and strain relations with allies who are forced to pay more for heating and power. The IEA does offer one caveat: the lost 120 bcm is not a permanent subtraction. As new liquefaction facilities come on stream later in the decade, global supply should eventually recoup the deficit. But the agency warns that the effect of those additions will be delayed, shifting the expected surplus into the 2030s and prolonging a period of market fragility.

The broader geopolitical calculus is now changing. The Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of the world’s LNG once passed, may remain contested territory for months or years. Meanwhile, the IEA’s report implicitly underscores a structural vulnerability: the world’s reliance on a handful of chokepoints for its gas supply. Any resolution will depend not only on the pace of new terminal construction in the Gulf of Mexico and East Africa, but on the unpredictable trajectory of a conflict that shows no sign of abating.