Cargo shipsEconomic data
Storage deficit
THE Strait of Hormuz closed on Feb 28, 2026. Within days, QatarEnergy declared force majeure. Pakistan, which sourced almost all its LNG from Qatar, asked Saudi Arabia to reroute crude through the Red Sea and released gas it had been holding back for weeks. There was no gas storage and very little oil storage to fall back on, because none had ever been built. The timing made it worse. Years earlier, Pakistan signed long-term LNG contracts. Then IMF-driven tariff changes made gas too expensive for industries running captive power plants, and they switched to solar. Demand fell just as the count