DOSSIER · Supply shock · Ras Laffan, Qatar (LNG export complex) / Strait of Hormuz / Germany / Italy · reviewed 2026-10-24
Hormuz traffic collapsed, Europe's gas storage stalled below target, and German power prices rose by half.
With Hormuz at 4 transits a day and EU storage at 74.6% on 23 October, which European gas buyers and gas-fired generators must buy replacement cargoes or fuel at spot before and during the heating season, at what energy shortfall, and what does that do to the German day-ahead power price?
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INDEPENDENT REVIEW · ACCEPTED
Accepted by an independent reviewer. Written by atlas-analyst, reviewed by atlas-counter-analyst on 2026-10-24. Two rounds at most; what the reviewer and the author still disagree on is kept, not resolved by majority.
Review notes, as written
Author's notes (kept): Drafted from four series, twenty figures and thirty-eight sourced constants. Points for an independent reviewer: the 11.2 TWh per bcm convention applied to Edison's Italian volumes (Snam's 40 MJ per Scm gives 11.11); the AGSI 23 October row is an estimate that may be revised; Eurostat shares are value-based while its volume change is in tonnes (J4, confidence LOW); the US fleet heat rate of 7,535 Btu per kWh is conservative against European plants; PortWatch tanker counts are not LNG-specific (A5); the trajectory ranges for November and December storage take the Q1 2026 draw as the upper bound of the pace. No hub gas price, Italian storage or gas-fired generation series is in the Atlas yet (L4, L7, L8). — Counter-analyst (2026-10-24, docs/night-2026-10-24/hormuz-lng-europe-gas-2026/COUNTER_ANALYSIS.md): REWORK, no REJECT. All 20 figures and every bound/quantity recompute; 35 of 38 quotes verbatim at their URL. REWORK on constants K6/K7/K8 (the AGSI single-day URL returns an API error and the 23 October row is no longer served; values confirmed on the 20-22 October rows), K27/K28 (Adriatic LNG's own release of 15 July 2026 is the primary), K32 (the German legal target is 80% per facility, 45% for six named porous sites, GasSpFuellstV par. 1; 70% is a reported aggregate). Operative EU target for 2026 is 80% (Commissioner's letter, Gas Coordination Group 26 March 2026; ACER 7 July 2026), so C3's gap is 60.9 TWh, not 174; Italy is at 89.8% and Germany at 61.1% on 22 October, so L3 is CONSISTENT, not OBSERVED, and the mechanism is the storage spread, not the physical loss. C11's 110 EUR/MWh 'fuel-only floor' uses a US fleet-average heat rate, the non-conservative direction for a floor: at 55-60% efficiency and 50 EUR/MWh gas the fuel cost is 83-91, about 111-121 with EUA near 82 EUR/t, and about 170-185 all-in at the October TTF of 75-89; J2's PHYSICAL check and T1's closed-branch price bounds must be re-derived (K31's August 50-60 is superseded). J4 is not supported: GIE ALSI send-out fell 8.9% in Q2 and 12.5% in Q3 year on year, the JKM-TTF spread is near 1 USD/MMBtu (its 2024-25 norm), and all Hormuz cargoes since March went to Asia; A4 should be WEAKENED and C6 should drop 'not from idle liquefaction' (Golden Pass and Corpus Christi Stage 3 ramp in 2026; IEA: about 70% of lost volume compensated). C10 describes the 18 June-8 July partial reopening (19 days at 10 or more transits, mean 24/day) as a three-day spike. A1's low start (74 TWh) outweighs the slower refill (53 TWh). Organisations: adriatic-lng should cite the primary; conocophillips, shell, south-hook-lng and fluxys-lng are deductions from pre-2026 contracts, not evidenced 2026 exposures; ADNOC and the Chinese term buyers are absent. Storage trajectory ranges are consistent with AGSI 2023-2025 and ENTSOG WSO 2026/27 (72% on 1 October; reference winter ends at 29% with optimal LNG, 13% with tight LNG). No source publishes the three series side by side. Rework round 1 applied on 2026-10-24T01:31Z: items 1 (C3 to the operative 80% target with K39-K42, Italian and German 22 October levels K43-K46, C13, L3 to CONSISTENT), 2 (C11 rebuilt from K47-K52, J2 check and threshold, T1 closed-branch price bounds, K31 kept as low case), 3 (J4 rewritten without the value-minus-mass quantity, A4 WEAKENED, C6 without 'not from idle liquefaction', K57-K62), 4 (C10 as the 18 June-8 July partial reopening with F21-F23 and K55-K56, A1 OPEN with C15-C16), 5 (K27-K28 to Adriatic LNG's 15 July release, K6-K8 to served AGSI rows, K19 note, K32 as reported aggregate), 6 (organisations: adriatic-lng primary URL; conocophillips, shell, south-hook-lng, fluxys-lng DEDUCED). Disagreements kept visible: the regulation's 90% stays in K9 and C3's text; ALSI send-out figures are the reviewer's recomputation pending a series; the S&P EUA and Platts spread prints were not retrievable and GMK/GLH stand in. — Counter-analyst round 2 (2026-10-24, final pass, COUNTER_ANALYSIS.md 'Round 2'): ACCEPTED. All 62 constant quotes and 26 organisation quotes re-read at their URLs; F21-F23 and every bound and quantity recompute exactly (C3 60.87, C11 151.22, C13 28.61, C15 73.92, C16 53.51, J2 59.45, J4 -0.7). K6-K8 now point at a served AGSI range; K27-K28 at Adriatic LNG's 15 July release; K43-K46 and K53-K54 AGSI rows answer; C10's window (21 days, 506 transits, mean 24.1, 19 days at 10 or more) recomputes. Disagreements kept, not erased: (1) K52's 60% is a net (LHV) efficiency while TTF is billed per MWh GCV, so on the GCV basis (0.60 x 0.903 = 54.2%) the best-plant floor is 167.5 EUR/MWh at the October low TTF and 190.8 at 88.38, not 151 and 172; the filed figure is below the physical floor and therefore admissible as a lower bound, but 'fuel plus carbon cost 151' understates the cost by about ten percent; (2) J2's illustration 'two thirds of hours on the floor and one third near the 24 October level' gives 2/3 x 151.2 + 1/3 x 30.1 = 110.9, not 120 (121.7 on the GCV-basis floor); the 120 threshold and T1's closed-branch low bound stand on the September-October distribution (7 of 30 and 3 of 24 days below 120, October 1-24 mean 161.9), not on that arithmetic; (3) K53/K54 source_date 2026-06-30 is neither the gas day nor the read date; (4) J4's quantity sign depends on reading 'low-USD 26s' as 26.0, and its ALSI figures are the reviewer's recomputation pending a series; (5) L3's 'to' label still says 90%; (6) Edison's reported extension to early December (The National, 28 Sep 2026) is unverified at edison.it, so K1/K2 may be superseded. Status set to REVIEWED; publication remains the owner's decision.
What this dossier holds
62 constants read verbatim from their sources, 15 bounded constraints recomputed at every build, a 9-link causal chain with a status per link (4 untested, 0 contradicted), 5 alternatives weighed with their discriminators, 5 conjectures with their checks and falsifiers, 1 conditional trajectories with paths by period and implications by organisation, and the independent counter-analysis with its disagreements kept. Below the sample and the offer, a preview: the chain with its statuses, 5 of the constants with their quotes, the conjectures and trajectories by statement. The rest is the product.
A sample of the data
The last 5 points of 2 of the 4 series. Free downloads carry the last 12 points. Premium opens the available full series, dossiers and exports; restricted series remain cited, not redistributed.
| Series | Family · unit | latest | in total | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Day-ahead power price, DE-LU | Economic · EUR/MWh | 195.66 | 211.94 | 148.61 | 137.59 | 30.12 | 297 |
| EU gas in storage | Physical · TWh | 845.14 | 844.76 | 844.98 | 844.77 | 845.05 | 296 |
Periods run from 2026-10-20 to 2026-10-24 on the first row; hover a value for its period. Downloads and provenance: data sheet →
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Preview: the chain
From the physical event to the decision, one link at a time. Observed is seen in the series; consistent agrees with them without being isolated; untested names the series that would test it; contradicted is what the data refused. The evidence behind each link, and what validated it, are in the export.
- L1 · PHYSICALObservedlag 0–3 days
Hormuz transits, all vessels and tankers Qatari LNG loadings stopped
PortWatch counts fell from 64 transits on 27 February and 57 on 28 February to 4 on 2 March 2026 (tankers from 36 to 1); QatarEnergy declared force majeure on European and Asian deliveries and had still not lifted it in October.
- L2 · LOGISTICALConsistentlag 20–45 days
Qatari loadings stopped Qatar's share of EU LNG imports near zero
With 4 transits a day through 18 October, Qatar's share of EU LNG imports went from 10.1% in Q4 2025 to 0.3% in Q2 2026 and EU LNG volumes fell 21.4% year on year in Q2; the share is a Eurostat constant, not an Atlas series.
- L3 · PHYSICALConsistentlag 30–200 days
Lost Qatari cargoes, competition for US cargoes, and the summer-winter spread EU storage below the 90% target at the end of injection
Storage bottomed at 313.8 TWh on 31 March, reached 815.1 TWh on 1 October and peaked at 845.1 TWh on 19 October; injections stopped at 74.6% of working gas volume, 60.9 TWh short of the operative 80% target. The storage path is observed; the 'from' end is not in any series, so the link is consistent rather than observed. Two thirds of the gap to 2025 is the low start (C15), one third the slower refill (C16); and the shortfall sits in Germany (61.2%), which holds no Qatari contract, while Italy, which lost the cargoes, is at 89.8% (C13): the mechanism runs through price and incentives, not through a missing Italian cargo.
- L4 · ECONOMICUntestedlag 0–30 days
Storage shortfall and extra spot LNG need European hub gas price (TTF, PSV, THE)
ACER put EU spot LNG needs at 56 bcm for 2026 if Qatar stays offline and Uniper expects 50 to 60 EUR per MWh while the strait is closed; the Atlas carries no hub gas price series, so the link is not measured here.
- L5 · ECONOMICConsistentlag 0–2 days
Hub gas price DE-LU day-ahead power price
Gas plants supplied 16.1% of German grid feed-in in 2025 and set the price in many hours: the day-ahead went from 53.35 EUR per MWh on 28 February to 92.87 on 2 March, peaked at 256.55 on 14 September and stood at 210.67 on 16 October; on 24 October it cleared at 30.12, which only wind and solar can produce. Daily values therefore mix the gas floor with the renewable output; the gas price itself is not in the Atlas.
- L6 · BEHAVIOURALConsistentlag 30–90 days
Force majeure notices to term buyers Replacement cargoes at Italian and Polish terminals
Edison replaced 21 of its 29 lost cargoes (about 2 bcm) at Adriatic LNG by 28 August, where US carriers outnumbered Qatari ones 28 to 13 in the first half; Orlen replaced Qatari volumes from the US, Norway and Baltic Pipe. Terminal capacity allowed it; no series measures it yet.
- L7 · ECONOMICUntestedlag 30–180 days
Replacement cargoes bought at spot Buyer margin and end-user gas price
Edison says it honours all commitments; what the 3.8 bcm cost against the contract price is undisclosed. A PSV day-ahead series and Edison's quarterly results would close the link.
- L8 · BEHAVIOURALUntestedlag 0–30 days
Gas fuel cost Gas-fired dispatch and industrial gas use in Germany
Uniper and RWE run the plants, BASF burns the gas; whether plants ran fewer hours or industry cut intake in September and October is not in the Atlas. SMARD gas-fired generation and Bundesnetzagentur industrial consumption series would test it.
- L9 · LOGISTICALUntestedlag 21–45 days
Strait reopening First Qatari cargo at a European terminal
Undamaged Ras Laffan trains restart within about two weeks of a reopening, then a laden voyage follows; the 24 June spike of 51 transits did not persist. No reopening has occurred in the series, so the lag is a conjecture.
Preview: 5 of the 62 constants
Each constant carries the sentence it was read from and the date of that source. 57 more, and the 15 bounded constraints recomputed from them, are in the export.
| Id | Constant | Value | Kind | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
K1 | Edison LNG cargoes under QatarEnergy force majeure, April to early November 2026 “As a result, a total of 29 LNG cargoes is now subject to force majeure over this period, representing a total volume of approximately 3.8 billion cubic meters of natural gas.” | 29 cargoes | supply | source, 2026-08-28 |
K2 | Edison volume under force majeure “As a result, a total of 29 LNG cargoes is now subject to force majeure over this period, representing a total volume of approximately 3.8 billion cubic meters of natural gas.” | 3.80 bcm | supply | source, 2026-08-28 |
K3 | Edison long-term contract with QatarEnergy “Edison holds a long-term contract with QatarEnergy for the supply of 6.4 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year to Italy. The contract, which has been in force since 2009, has a total duration of 25 years.” | 6.40 bcm per year | supply | source, 2026-08-28 |
K4 | Edison replacement volume secured by 28 August 2026 “As of 28 August 2026, Edison reports the replacement of 21 LNG cargoes at the Adriatic LNG terminal, representing a volume of approximately 2 billion cubic meters of natural gas.” | 2 bcm | supply | source, 2026-08-28 |
K5 | Energy content per billion cubic metres, Commission convention “Gas Infrastructure Europe - AGSI (gie.eu) - data published under the Storage Transparency Platform, shows 1146.5651 TWh (102 bcm using 11.2 coonversion factor to translate TWh to bcm) of technical working capacity as of 18 March 2025.” | 11.20 TWh per bcm | physical | source, 2026-07-03 |
Preview: what the author concludes
5 conjectures by statement. Their quantities, the checks run against the constraints, what would prove each wrong, and the 5 alternative explanations with their discriminators are in the export.
- J1 · CROSS GEOGRAPHY · confidence medium
Ras Laffan to Rovigo: the eight Edison cargoes not yet replaced on 28 August are 1.8 bcm, about 20 TWh, to be bought in the September to early November spot window in which Asian buyers bid for the same US cargoes; the terminal can take them, the question is only the price above the Qatari contract.
- J2 · CROSS SECTOR · confidence medium
From the gas cavern to the power exchange: while the strait is closed and TTF stays at or above its October low of 75.75 EUR per MWh, every hour in which a German gas plant is marginal clears at or above 151 EUR per MWh of fuel and carbon (172 at the 19 October TTF); the 16 October value of 210.67 sits 59 EUR above that floor, and the 30.12 of 24 October shows the floor vanishing when wind and solar take the margin. The monthly average therefore depends on the share of gas-marginal hours, which the Atlas does not yet measure: at two thirds of hours on the floor and one third near the 24 October level the average is about 120 EUR per MWh, which is the November 2026 threshold claimed here unless transits reopen. The first draft's 110 EUR 'fuel-only' floor was withdrawn after the counter-analysis.
- J3 · LOCAL · confidence medium
Stock, not deliverability: at the Q1 2026 net draw of 4.37 TWh per day, 845 TWh covers 193 days, into May 2027; the 174 TWh missing to the 90% target is 40 days of draw. The winter exposure of European buyers is therefore the price of the last cargoes, not an empty cavern, unless the draw doubles.
- J4 · CROSS GEOGRAPHY · confidence low
Doha, Tokyo and Rotterdam: Europe lost about its Qatari share of LNG and not more. The physical measure, GIE ALSI send-out, fell less than the trade statistics (the counter-analysis recomputed it at 8.9% in Q2 and 12.5% in Q3 year on year, against 21.4% in Eurostat tonnes; ALSI is not yet an Atlas series), the fifty-odd Hormuz cargoes since March all went to Asia, the IEA puts added US and Canadian exports at about 70% of the lost volume, and on 9 October TTF stood above JKM. Asia has not been outbidding Europe; the conjecture is that Europe's winter LNG depends on the 2026 US trains and on JKM staying below TTF, and that a JKM premium above 3 USD per MBtu would be the first sign of Atlantic cargoes being pulled east. The first draft's claim that the Qatari loss doubled through diversion, and its value-share-minus-mass-change quantity, were withdrawn after the counter-analysis.
- J5 · LOCAL · confidence medium
The refill ran slower than in 2025: from the 31 March minimum to 1 October the EU injected 501 TWh, about 44.8 bcm, against 50 bcm in summer 2025, despite starting lower with more headroom. Both the low start and the slower refill explain the 174 TWh gap to the target.
T1 · 2026-10-24 → 2026-12-31
Hormuz transits, EU storage and German day-ahead power to the end of 2026
- strait-closed: Hormuz transits, all vessels, daily
<= 10by 2026-11-30 - strait-reopened: Hormuz transits, all vessels, daily
>= 30by 2026-11-30
Paths by period and implications by organisation: in the export.
Machine access: /api/atlas/hormuz-lng-europe-gas-2026 carries this preview, and the complete dossier with a member key. What is for sale and why →