Europe’s benchmark natural gas prices soared this week after Qatar’s key LNG hub sustained extensive damage in Iranian missile attacks, with European gas prices on track for a 20% weekly jump early on Friday as the market braces itself for years of disrupted supply out of the world’s second-largest LNG exporter.
The April 2026 contract of the Dutch TTF Natural Gas Futures slightly eased early on Friday from the surge on Thursday and was trading flat at about $72 (62 euros) per megawatt-hour (MWh) as of 9:19 a.m. Amsterdam time.
The benchmark gas prices are set for a 20% weekly surge, following the sharp move higher on Thursday, when prices soared on fears of persistent gas supply disruptions following the Iranian attack on Qatar’s Ras Laffan Industrial City (RLIC), which hosts the world’s biggest LNG liquefaction complex.
All the futures prices through the March 2027 futures contracts are now trading above $69 (60 euros) per MWh, double compared to just above $37 (32 euros) per MWh before the war in the Middle East started on February 28.
Qatar’s state firm QatarEnergy on Thursday said it expects the damage to the Ras Laffan LNG complex to cost it about $20 billion per year in lost revenue and to take up to five years to repair, noting that supply to markets in Europe and Asia would be impacted for years to come.
About 17% of Qatar’s LNG export capacity is now effectively sidelined for years to come, tightening market balances for the rest of the decade.
“The damage sustained by the LNG facilities will take between three to five years to repair,” said QatarEnergy President and CEO, Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, who is also Qatar’s Minister of State for Energy Affairs.
“The impact is on China, South Korea, Italy and Belgium. This means that we will be compelled to declare force majeure for up to five years on some long-term LNG contracts.”
The extended outage in Qatar upends global LNG and gas markets as it risks tightening global supply, raising prices, and delaying capacity growth through 2028, Wood Mackenzie reckons.
By Michael Kern for Oilprice.com
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