Amid the Hormuz crisis, Qatar is becoming the biggest buyer of US LNG

Before the Iran war, Qatar was the world's second-largest exporter of LNG. Now it is becoming the biggest buyer of liquefied natural gas from the United States. Yet at the start of this decade, the United States had overtaken this Gulf country to rise to the top spot in LNG exports.

This change is the result of the terrible disaster that the Iran war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz have brought upon Qatar and its economy. Yet the United States was the only rival to Qatar's LNG expansion plan for the rest of this decade.

The war and the Hormuz strait crisis are still holding back most of Qatar's LNG exports, turning its plans upside down. The country's state energy giant, QatarEnergy, is now trying to repair its LNG facilities damaged in an Iranian missile attack last March.

QatarEnergy said in March that the attack had destroyed 17 percent of its export capacity and caused an estimated loss of 20 billion dollars in annual revenue.

Seven months later, Qatar is still able to send only a very small number of cargo ships through the Strait of Hormuz. The prolonged crisis is severely disrupting supply to markets where Qatar's LNG was supposed to reach, although its production capacity has also now declined.

For some long-term LNG contracts, QatarEnergy has been forced to declare 'force majeure', or unavoidable circumstances, for up to five years. As a result, Qatar has faced losses of several billion dollars as sales contracts suddenly fell through.

Most importantly, Qatar's reliable image as a regular supplier is also under threat today.

Mainly because LNG-carrying ships cannot pass through the Strait of Hormuz, last week the Qatari state energy giant extended the force majeure in effect on LNG supplies to Asia and Europe until December 2026.

Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, president and chief executive of QatarEnergy and Qatar's minister of state for energy, said last September that, unlike oil, LNG-exporting countries cannot transport this fuel through pipelines.

Speaking at a special edition of the Qatar Economic Forum held in New York, Al-Kaabi said, 'The problem is that LNG is our main export product, which cannot be transported through a pipeline. We first have to transport it as gas through a pipeline and then liquefy it at the receiving terminal, wherever in the world that may be.'

The minister further explained, 'This means that, in addition to the facilities we are already building in Qatar as part of the North Field expansion project, we will have to build additional or unnecessary facilities. This is in no way economically justified.' He added, 'We have decided not to use the pipeline as an alternative, based on commercial and technical criteria.'

On resuming LNG production and exports, the official noted, 'Qatar is ready to resume normal operations within just a few weeks of the Strait of Hormuz reopening.'

As the Hormuz crisis enters its ninth month, pressure on Qatar's energy economy continues, with a large part of its LNG exports still held back.