No LNG has crossed Hormuz since 12 July, IEA warns on winter supply

The IEA said continued disruption to Gulf LNG exports would tighten global supply at the worst possible moment for buyers. No LNG tankers have crossed the Strait of Hormuz since 12 July, according to S&P Global Commodities at Sea data cited on 21 July, after a brief resumption collapsed when the US and Iran resumed hostilities. Fatih Birol, the IEA's executive director, said the situation will affect all LNG importers, Europe included, as the continent tries to rebuild gas storage before the cold months.

Other producers have partly filled the gap. Birol noted that the US and Canada have so far covered about 70% of the volumes lost to the near shutdown of the strait. That cushion is real, but it is not complete, and further postponements in Gulf exports may hold prices elevated. Bloomberg reported Birol's assessment of the strait closure's impact on supply, while Reuters has tracked his warnings since April that Middle East disruptions would reach European markets.

What this means for UK buyers

The UK draws on the same Northwest European LNG pool that is now repricing. Platts, part of S&P Global Energy, put the DES Northwest Europe LNG marker at $19.36 per million British thermal units on 20 July, the highest since March and a 45% rise from its late-June low. When the delivered LNG marker moves, National Balancing Point (NBP) gas and UK winter power tend to follow, because gas sets the marginal price in most settlement periods.

The storage picture explains the sensitivity. EU stocks were at 54% on 19 July, well below recent years:

NBP day-ahead gas over recent months shows how the delivered LNG marker's move is feeding through to UK prices.

• 54% filled on 19 July 2026 (Gas Infrastructure Europe)
• 64.7% at the same point in 2025
• 82.3% at the same point in 2024
• Refill season running against a tighter LNG balance
• US-Iran hostilities blocking Gulf flows since 12 July

The near-term view is not uniformly bleak. A group of European gas experts convened by the European Commission recently said the EU has no immediate concern over supply security for winter 2026-27. The Guardian reported Birol describing oil markets as nearing a 'red zone' as the Iran crisis continued, an indication of how tightly the region's supply risk is now priced across commodities.

Watch whether Gulf exports resume in the third quarter, the timeline the IEA set for global LNG supply to hold flat against 2025. If tankers stay idle through August, the agency expects a year-on-year contraction in global supply, which would pressure UK winter contracts further. Buyers with renewals landing before spring should treat the resumption date, not the headline price, as the signal to act on.