The World Needs Natural Gas Now, but the U.S. Is Exporting All It Can

War in the

Middle East

U.S.-Iran Talks

Israel-Lebanon Truce

Strait of Hormuz

Generals Running Iran

Timeline of War

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.

Supported by

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

The World Needs Natural Gas Now, but the U.S. Is Exporting All It Can

Even the largest global supplier of liquefied natural gas can’t make up for the shortfall since the war in Iran cut off an important source.

Listen

· 8:03 min

Share full article

The United States is building more export terminals like this one in Cameron, La., but they will take months or years to complete.

Credit...

Brandon Bell/Getty Images

By

Ivan Penn

April 28, 2026,

5:02 a.m. ET

See more of our coverage in your search results.

Encuentra más de nuestra cobertura en los resultados de búsqueda.

Add The New York Times on Google

Agrega The New York Times en Google

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has cut off a significant source of liquefied natural gas, but the United States, the biggest exporter of the fuel, is unlikely to pick up that slack because it has no spare capacity.

A two-month pause on L.N.G. shipments from Qatar, a Persian Gulf country near the strait, has caused prices to surge across Europe and Asia. That is spreading significant economic pain because places like Italy, Taiwan and South Korea depend on the fuel to produce electricity, heat homes and run industrial plants.

This is the second time in less than five years that global natural gas markets have been severely disrupted. In 2022, Russia began choking off the piped gas it used to send to European countries around the time of its invasion of Ukraine.

U.S. companies went to Europe’s rescue and are expected to bring new L.N.G. capacity online in the coming months and years. But analysts said those efforts would not nearly be sufficient to make up for the loss of Qatari gas if the strait did not reopen soon, forcing importers to ration and turn to other sources of energy.

“All of the L.N.G. that is exported from the U.S., it’s at full capacity,” said Massimo Di Odoardo, vice president of gas and L.N.G. research at Wood MacKenzie, an energy research firm.

Since the war in Iran began on Feb. 28, prices for L.N.G. shipped to Europe and Asia have climbed to as much as six times the price of natural gas in the United States. In the months before the war, they were

less than four times

as high.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and

log into

your Times account, or

subscribe

for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?

Log in

.

Want all of The Times?

Subscribe

.

Related Content

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT