A tanker carrying liquefied natural gas from Qatar appears to have transited the Strait of Hormuz, marking the country’s first export out of the region since the Iran war began.
The Al Kharaitiyat, which loaded at the Ras Laffan export plant earlier this month, exited the strait and is in the Gulf of Oman, ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg shows. The vessel lists Pakistan as its next destination, according to the data.
The ship appears to have navigated the Tehran-approved northern route that hugs the Iranian coast through the strait, the data showed.
The effective closure of the waterway has choked off global LNG supplies, sending prices higher and causing shortages across Asia. Vessels continue to face security threats as both Iran and the US have implemented de facto blockades.
While the Al Kharaitiyat’s journey offers tentative signs that more LNG flows could resume, it’s a far cry from prewar levels of roughly three shipments a day out of the Persian Gulf. At least two LNG tankers that loaded from Abu Dhabi National Oil Co.’s export plant have traversed the strait since the conflict began, Bloomberg reported earlier this week.
The move comes after Qatar made several previous attempts to send shipments through Hormuz, but eventually the tankers turned around. The country, which produced almost a fifth of global LNG supply last year, hasn’t been able to move any LNG out of the Persian Gulf since the conflict began at the end of February.
Qatar’s Nakilat owns the Al Kharaitiyat, according to ship database Equasis. Nakilat and QatarEnergy did not respond to a request for comment.