Trump threatens US LNG supplies to Europe
March 24, 2026
Around 115 mtpa of LNG liquefaction capacity has shut operations by the end of March, equating to just over 25% of global LNG trade and representing an unprecedented amount of outages.
Qatar’s Ras Laffan and the UAE’s Das Island remained cut from the global LNG market for the full month of March amid the closure of Strait of Hormuz. This represents alone a loss of around 10 bcm of gas supply. In addition, repairing Qatar’s two damaged trains would take 3-5 years, leading to a loss between 50-90 bcm over the medium-term.
And while Qatar’s LNG operations remain essentially shut, cyclone Narelle practically kicked off Australia’s western LNG plants. The cyclone disrupted operations at the Wheatstone, Gorgon and North West Shelf LNG projects. Very importantly, the Karratha gas processing plant suffered an outage after allegedly losing power supply.
No official timeline was shared by the operators on when the plants could return to operations. But considering the already tight global LNG market conditions, each and every day of lost production adds more pressure to the market.
In addition, the smaller Darwin LNG is undergoing unplanned maintenance due to technical issues, just three months after it returned to operations.
Source: Greg Molnar
