With the outage at the Norwegian Ormen Lange gas field extended into February 2027, upward pressure on prices is mounting and is likely to persist as Europe’s gas storage gap widens further.
Europe
Yet, any pricing snapshot is to be considered with caution, especially as gas prices continue to get sucked into the whirlwind of news from the Middle East.
Negotiations between Iran and Oman regarding the oversight of the Strait of Hormuz are ongoing.
Yet, there is no direct involvement of the US – from whom Iran will expect various concessions – and with the prospect of fees upending maritime freedom, market participants seem to have lost confidence in this particular attempt to salvage the situation.
Worsening the supply outlook, Shell has extended the outage at Norway’s Ormen Lange gas field.
With output reduced by 40%, corresponding to 8.9 million cubic meters per day (MMcmd), the outage extension will cost Europe the equivalent of 11-12 LNG cargoes against the backdrop of war in the Middle East and a widening rather than closing storage gap.
As of 11 August, the volume of gas stored in the EU and UK stood at 67.4 billion cubic meters (Bcm), equivalent to 59.12% of total storage capacity.
Compared to a week earlier, the storage gap to a year earlier had grown from 13.91 Bcm to 14.79 Bcm.
Even so, the latest forward curves point to Europe as a destination for uncommitted US cargoes from October, and the continent is currently receiving a few incremental cargoes originally destined for Egypt as the Mediterranean country deals with the fallout of the earlier drone strike on its import infrastructure.
In other news, site clearing and dredging works for an LNG import terminal in Iraq are underway.
Initially hoping to commence imports in 2026, Iraq is turning to electricity imports from Turkiye and pushing domestic gas production to bridge a supply gap until the FSRU-based facility starts operations in 2027.
Asia
While the East Asian LNG price for October delivery rose 4.7% week-on-week to $21.69 per MMBtu on 11 August, Asian prices are increasing at a slower pace than their European counterpart, likely nudging uncommitted US cargoes towards Europe, going forward.
Still, cheaper LNG freight rates are lowering the premium Asian importers have to offer relative to Europe, and buying interest from South Asia especially remained strong.
In western Japan, Chugoku Electric’s nuclear power plant (NPP) 820-megawatt (MW) Shimane unit 2 faced an unplanned extension of ongoing maintenance and is expected to restart on 17 August compared to an earlier restart in the month.
This plant went offline on 9 February 2026 for planned maintenance. This could have 0.08 Mt (or 79,000 tonnes of LNG) of additional LNG consumption for Chugoku Electric if gas-fired plants were to replace the unavailable NPP capacity for an entire month.
Kansai Electric’s 1.18-GW NPP Ohi unit 3 went offline on 9 August due to an alarm being triggered. The cause of this is still being investigated, and no planned restart date has been mentioned as of 11 August. Kansai Electric’s Himeji Daini gas-fired power plant unit 3 (nameplate capacity of 486.5 MW) faced an unplanned outage on 19 July and is expected to restart on 12 August, though details remained limited.
Meanwhile, LNG inventory held by major Japanese power utilities has only risen slightly to 2.03 million tonnes (Mt), compared to the previous two weeks’ 2.02 Mt.
In Bangladesh, the floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) Excellence restarted LNG sendout after a fire forced a shutdown between 22 July and 5 August.
US
Front-month prices at the Henry Hub increased by 3.2% week-on-week to $2.77 per MMBtu on 11 August but remain comfortably below the $3 per MMBtu mark in a loose US gas market.
Despite severe heat and associated cooling, strong US gas output continues to outweigh seasonal demand peaks and softened LNG feedgas demand.
According to the latest EIA storage report from 31 July, US natural gas inventories not only increased by 33 billion cubic feet (Bcf) during the last week of July but did so at a higher rate than in 2025 and the 5-year average.
That puts US inventories at 3,117 Bcf.
Even though US gas consumption for power generation climbed another 3.2% to 50.14 billion cubic feet per day (Bcfd) during the week ending 10 August, another week of storage build can be expected.
During the same week, LNG feedgas demand increased to an average of 17.46 Bcfd, up 3.1% over last week but still limited by reduced flows to Freeport LNG and sporadic pull from Golden Pass.
Even so, the seventh and final train of Cheniere’s Corpus Christi stage 3 expansion produced LNG over the weekend and is anticipated to operate fully by mid to late September.
