Two Vacancies, One Winter — The 43 Billion Cubic Metre Gulf LNG Shock, the EU’s 33 Billion Cubic Metre Russian Gas Phase Out, and Who Can Contract, Ship and Deliver in 2027

Report summary

Two official numbers now define the LNG market heading into 2027, and they do not describe the same vacancy. On 15 September 2026 the International Energy Agency reported that LNG exports from Qatar and the United Arab Emirates fell by 43 billion cubic metres year on year between March and July, a decline it compared with more than half of Germany’s gas consumption in 2025. In the same commentary the agency estimated that the European Union’s phase out of Russian gas will reduce combined Russian pipeline and LNG deliveries to the Union by around 33 billion cubic metres a year between 2025 and 2028. The first vacancy is physical. It follows the closure of the Strait of Hormuz to normal commercial LNG traffic from March and the damage to two of the 14 trains at Ras Laffan, which removed 12.8 million tonnes a year of capacity. On 21 September QatarEnergy’s chief executive, Saad Al-Kaabi, put the repair at three years for the two trains and the first quarter of 2027 for the damaged gas to liquids plant, and said Qatar was ready to resume normal operations within a few weeks of the reopening of the strait, which we read as applying to the undamaged capacity, on our reading. The second vacancy is legal and sequenced: all Russian LNG imports into the Union end on 1 January 2027, and remaining Russian pipeline imports on 30 September 2027, extendable to 1 November. Treating 43 and 33 as one 76 billion cubic metre deficit is the wrong arithmetic, and this report keeps them apart throughout.