Qatari, UAE LNG cargoes transferred via ship-to-ship outside Strait of Hormuz

Three liquefied natural gas cargoes loaded in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have been transferred between ships outside the Strait of Hormuz in recent weeks for delivery to India and Japan, according to ship-tracking firms.

Several commercial vessels have faced attacks amid heightened tensions in the Strait of Hormuz, a key shipping route, since the US and Israeli war on Iran broke out on February 28. Most LNG tankers that have managed to transit the strait have delivered cargoes directly to end-buyers. Unlike crude oil, ship-to-ship (STS) LNG transfers are unusual.

The QatarEnergy-controlled Al Rekayyat tanker, which was hit by a projectile near the Strait of Hormuz in early July, conducted an STS transfer in mid-August on the east coast of the United Arab Emirates, according to Vortexa and Kpler data. The Al Rekayyat conducted the ship-to-ship transfer with another Qatari LNG tanker, Tembek. The cargo, originally loaded at Ras Laffan, was subsequently delivered by Tembek to India’s Dahej terminal on August 31, Kpler data showed.

A third tanker, ADNOC-controlled Mraweh, completed an STS transfer with LNG Enugu off the coast of Oman, outside the Hormuz strait, in mid-August, according to Vortexa and Kpler. The Mraweh had loaded an LNG cargo from Das Island in early August before conducting the STS transfer with LNG Enugu, which is currently en route to Futtsu, Japan, Kpler data showed. ADNOC declined to comment.

Separately, the LNG carrier GasLog Shanghai, which was involved in an incident while exiting the Strait of Hormuz in late July, completed an STS transfer with GasLog Savannah in late August, offshore Oman.

Shipping firm BW Group and Japanese trading house Marubeni, which both own LNG Enugu through a joint venture, did not respond to requests for comment.

The lack of meaningful recovery of LNG flows from the Persian Gulf, combined with Qatar’s extended force majeure on deliveries and the US-Iran re-escalation, has pushed Asia’s spot LNG prices to a five-month high and Europe’s benchmark natural gas prices to a three-and-a-half-year high this week.