Iran's Qatar Strike Cuts Pakistan LNG to 2 Cargoes
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- Pakistan's LNG imports fell from 8–12 monthly shipments in 2025 to just 2 in March 2026, after Iranian drones hit Qatar's Ras Laffan Industrial City on March 2 and Qatar declared force majeure on all LNG production.
- QatarEnergy cut LNG production by 17 percent following the Ras Laffan strike, with repairs expected to take up to five years; an Israeli strike on Iran's South Pars gas field on March 18 threatened the shared reservoir both countries depend on.
- Pakistan's gas-sector circular debt reached 3.3 trillion rupees (~$11 billion) as the government was locked into rigid 15- and 10-year contracts requiring LNG purchases even as domestic demand collapsed from 8.2 million tonnes in 2021 to 6.1 million tonnes by late 2025.
- LNG prices for Pakistan's surviving cargoes rose 19 percent in a month — from $10.47 to $12.49 per MMBtu — and furnace oil, the main backup fuel, more than doubled in price since the Strait of Hormuz disruption to 35 rupees per unit (~$0.12).
- Pakistan depends on Qatar and the UAE for 99 percent of LNG imports and holds no emergency reserves, leaving LNG-fired power plants — which supply over 21 percent of its electricity — effectively out of the running order, according to IEEFA analyst Haneea Isaad.
- Solar power bought time: 34 gigawatts of installed capacity (25 GW feeding the grid) cut grid electricity demand 11 percent between 2022 and 2025, but analysts warn peak summer demand of 33,000 megawatts may overwhelm the buffer and trigger daily planned blackouts.
Why it matters: Pakistan was locked into rigid 10- and 15-year LNG contracts with Qatar while domestic demand was already falling 26% from 2021 to 2025 due to a rooftop solar boom. Now 21% of its power generation has no fuel, furnace oil costs have more than doubled, and 33,000 MW of summer peak demand approaches with no emergency reserves — grid-dependent households and gas-dependent industries will absorb the shortfall unevenly.
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