Hormuz traffic collapsed, Europe's gas storage stalled below target, and German power prices rose by half.

Why these three series belong together

Qatar ships its LNG through one strait, Europe stores gas in summer for the winter, and in Germany a gas plant often sets the power price. Three public series from three publishers, dated and read side by side, show how far a closed strait travels and where the chain is weaker than it looks.

What the strait did

IMF PortWatch counted 64 transits on 27 February [F20], 57 on 28 February [F1] and 4 on 2 March [F2]; tanker transits went from 36 [F6] to 1 [F19]. A partial window followed: 20 transits on 18 June [F21], 51 on 24 June [F5] and 20 on 8 July [F22], before the count fell to 7 on 10 July [F23]. From 1 September to 18 October the strait averaged under 4 transits a day, with none on 1 October [F24] and 4 on 18 October [F3], of which 2 were tankers [F7]. PortWatch does not single out LNG carriers.

What storage did

EU gas in storage opened the year at 702.7 TWh [F8] and bottomed at 313.8 TWh on 31 March [F9], about 74 TWh below the level of 1 April 2025. It reached 815.1 TWh on 1 October [F12], peaked at 845.1 TWh on 19 October [F10] and stood at 845.0 TWh on 23 October [F11], 74.6% of working gas volume and about 61 TWh short of 80%. The 2026 refill, about 501 TWh to 1 October, was about 54 TWh smaller than 2025's. The latest days are GIE estimates and may be revised.

On 22 October GIE put Italy at 89.8% full and Germany at 61.2%, a storage spread of almost 29 points. Italy lost the Qatari cargoes and is full; Germany has no Qatari contract and is not, against a legal target of 80% per facility on 1 November.

What the German price did

The German day-ahead price (SMARD) was 53.35 EUR per MWh on 28 February [F13] and 92.87 on 2 March [F18]. It averaged 104.5 from 1 January to 27 February and 154.7 from 1 September to 23 October, peaking at 256.55 on 14 September [F14]; it cleared at 210.67 on 16 October [F15], 211.94 on 21 October [F26] and 137.59 on 23 October [F16].

Daily prices also follow the weather; when wind and solar take the margin, gas drops out: 51.08 on 10 October [F25] and 30.12 on 24 October [F17]. Only 7 of 30 September days and 3 of 24 October days cleared below 120.

The mechanism, and what else could explain it

Hypothesis · The chain reads: the strait closes, QatarEnergy declares force majeure, European term buyers replace cargoes at spot, the refill runs slower and dearer, and in gas-marginal hours the German price carries the higher fuel cost. Qatar was about 4% of EU gas imports in 2025, so the effect runs mainly through price, not missing volume.

Hypothesis · Other readings compete. The low start, about 74 TWh, weighs more in the storage gap than the slower refill; part of the shortfall was inherited from winter. Wind, solar, carbon and French nuclear output move German power with or without Hormuz. Asian outbidding looks weak: on 9 October TTF stood slightly above JKM, and Europe seems to have lost about its Qatari share of LNG, not more.

Who sits on the chain

Edison reports 29 Qatari cargoes, about 3.8 bcm, under force majeure from April to early November, and had replaced about 2 bcm by 28 August; Adriatic LNG, its terminal, took 28 US carriers and 13 Qatari in the first half. QatarEnergy has extended force majeure. Uniper expects gas at 50 to 60 EUR per MWh while the strait stays closed. JERA and CPC bought replacement cargoes in the same market.

Hypothesis · Deduced, not evidenced: German terminals (Deutsche Energy Terminal, Deutsche ReGas, German LNG Terminal) take diverted cargoes; RWE and BASF pay the higher fuel cost; Cheniere, Venture Global and Equinor sell into higher hub prices; KOGAS competes for the same cargoes.

A conditional sensitivity, not a forecast

Scenario · Assume TTF at its October low of 75.75 EUR per MWh, carbon at 82.3 EUR per tonne and Europe's most efficient combined-cycle plant. Fuel and carbon then cost at least 151 EUR per MWh of power whenever gas sets the price, at least 172 at the 19 October TTF of 88.38. The 16 October price of 210.67 [F15] sits about 59 above the lower floor; 24 October's 30.12 [F17] shows the floor vanishing when renewables set the price. The monthly average turns on the share of gas-marginal hours, which no series here measures.

What would change this reading

Hypothesis · Transits above 30 a day for a week by 30 November would open the reopening branch: Qatari cargoes reach Europe weeks later and German prices ease with a lag. A JKM premium over TTF above 3 USD per MBtu would signal Atlantic cargoes pulled east. Qatari arrivals in GIE ALSI while PortWatch shows no tanker would mean the count misses ships sailing with transponders off.