Gas prices stuck as Hormuz oil flows return

Ships are moving again through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow Gulf passage that carries roughly a fifth of the world's traded petroleum. Daily transits rose from fewer than 10 in early March to about 35 by June 22, according to S&P Global. More than 20 oil tankers carrying around 35 million barrels have crossed since the US-Iran agreement (CNBC). Oil is finding its way through. LNG (liquefied natural gas, cooled into liquid so it can travel by specialised tanker) is not, and for Europe, that is where the price risk has not gone away.

Oil has detours. LNG does not.

The difference starts with geography. Some Gulf crude can bypass Hormuz entirely: Saudi Arabia runs a pipeline with about 5 million barrels per day of export capacity, and the UAE has a 1.8 million b/d route that skips the Strait (EIA). Oil is also fungible. If one cargo is delayed, another from West Africa or the Americas can substitute.

Qatar's LNG export terminals sit behind Hormuz, and there is no pipeline alternative. During the worst of the disruption, no laden LNG tankers crossed between March 1 and April 24, cutting off more than 10 billion cubic feet per day of supply, a volume large enough to move global LNG pricing (EIA).

Recovery has started, but it is partial. Qatar has begun bringing empty ships back through the Strait. In the week to June 19 it loaded about a fifth of its pre-war pace (Energy Connects). Qatar says a damaged facility will stay offline even as other production restarts (Infobae/EFE).

Gas prices did not fall the way oil did. Front-month TTF (the Dutch wholesale gas benchmark that sets prices across Europe) sat at €40.90/MWh on June 25, barely budging while Brent crude dropped to $72.75, erasing its war-related gains (Dawn/Reuters, CNBC). BNP Paribas called gas's response "more moderate" than oil's, which is a polite way of saying gas prices are stuck high (BNP Paribas).

Why ships can pass but costs cannot fall

A ship can physically sail through Hormuz. That does not mean it is worth sending. War-risk premiums (the extra insurance charged for sailing through conflict zones) remain at roughly 3–4% of a vessel's value, compared with about 0.25% before the war (S&P Global, Allianz Commercial). Around 1,150 loaded vessels with a combined cargo value of about $125 billion were still waiting for Gulf passage as of late June (Allianz Commercial). Maersk sent two ships out of the Strait but left three inside the Gulf. Companies are choosing individual sailings, not returning to normal schedules (The Copenhagen Post).

This insurance gap is the mechanism that turns a maritime security story into an economic cost. The insurer charges the shipowner more. The shipowner raises freight costs. The buyer pays more for delivered LNG, for petrochemical feedstocks, for factory inputs. European gas and industrial buyers sit at the end of that chain.

Cushioned, exposed, or building

The burden falls unevenly across Europe. Germany imports only 6.1% of its crude from the Middle East but depends on imports for 67% of its energy (Destatis). The risk reaches German industry not through direct shortage but through global price channels: buyers do not know when cargoes will arrive or what they will cost. Chemical-industry analysts expect petrochemical feedstocks to normalise only slowly, in some cases not until 2027 (Chemie Technik).

Spain looks better buffered. Gas storage sits above 70% versus an EU average around 46%, and only 1.7% of its supply is directly linked to Hormuz (Europa Press, Energy Aspects). Full tanks protect against a volume shock. They do not protect against market-price risk, because Spain buys gas in the same European market where the marginal cargo sets expectations for everyone.

Poland is building its way out, with 8.3 bcm/year of LNG capacity at Świnoujście and two floating terminals planned by 2030 (GAZ-SYSTEM, gov.pl). Terminal capacity helps resilience. It cannot create LNG that cannot sail.

The Enagas chairman told Ara that gas-price futures do not point to full normalisation until late 2027 or early 2028. That timeline is a market forecast, not a certainty. But it is the honest measure of what "reopening" means. Oil has found detours. For gas, the bottleneck is the route.