A Blocked Strait Is Still Setting Europe's Gas Price
Dutch TTF, the benchmark price for natural gas in Europe, traded above 79 euros per megawatt-hour on September 9, its highest level since early 2023. The move is not a blip. It is the latest reading on a supply problem that has been building for months.
The Strait of Hormuz, the passage that before the current Iran-US conflict carried roughly 20 percent of the world's liquefied natural gas trade, has been effectively closed for several months. Cargoes that would normally reach Europe and Asia through the strait have not been moving, and the disruption shows no sign of ending soon.
Qatar, one of the suppliers Europe leaned on hardest during the last two energy crises, has its own separate problem. Damage to its export infrastructure has removed about 17 billion cubic metres of annual LNG capacity, roughly 17 percent of the country's total export capacity, and repairs are expected to take three to five years.
What the Numbers Actually Say
Goldman Sachs now estimates that the December 2026 TTF contract may need to rise above 100 euros per megawatt-hour to pull enough LNG into Europe to cover the shortfall, more than double the bank's own base case of 50 euros.
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Dutch TTF, September 9, 2026 | above 79 EUR/MWh |
| Goldman Sachs base case, December 2026 | 50 EUR/MWh |
| Goldman Sachs stress case, December 2026 | above 100 EUR/MWh |
| Qatar LNG capacity lost | 17 billion cubic metres/year (about 17 percent of exports) |
| EU gas consumption vs 2021 | 15 to 20 percent lower |
What the IEA Is Actually Telling Governments to Do
On the same day TTF hit its multi-year high, the International Energy Agency published a report comparing this disruption to the one Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine caused, and it did not recommend building bigger storage tanks and calling it done.
Instead the IEA pointed governments toward mandatory storage obligations, joint strategic reserves that share existing infrastructure across borders, buffer LNG schemes, and more flexible contracts and cargo swaps that let available supply move to wherever the shortage is worst. Its own framing was blunt: there is no single model that works for every country, and this is the second time in four years that an outside shock has tested whatever model each government had in place.
The Bill Lands on Businesses First
Eurozone inflation reached 3.3 percent in August, and energy was the main driver even as underlying price pressures elsewhere eased. The one cushion Europe has this time is demand itself: gas consumption across the bloc is already running 15 to 20 percent below 2021 levels, after two years of businesses cutting usage and switching where they could.
That cushion helps at the margin. It does not help a business on a floating energy contract, or one whose supplier is repricing on the spot market this winter.
What an EU or UK Operator Should Do Before Winter
Two shocks in four years, Russia's invasion in 2022 and the Hormuz disruption now, have each put Europe's gas price in the hands of a conflict thousands of kilometres from any EU boardroom. The IEA's own conclusion is that no country has yet built a fix durable enough to survive a third one.
For any business still on a floating or soon-to-renew energy contract, the practical question is not whether prices are volatile, that much is now established, but whether this year's contract, hedge, or supplier relationship was built assuming the last shock was a one-off.
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