Some light DD related LNG and Santos(STO)

Disclosure: Long STO(ASX listed) $8.50c May 21. Small position. This is not financial advice. Do your own research.

Qatar is the world's #1 LNG exporter. Every single tanker leaving their port at Ras Laffan has to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has now set a toll on Hormuz and is blocking US ships. Israel and Saudi want regime change. Trump is sending confused signals. This isn't resolving next week.

I pulled vessel tracking data aggretated to some ports, to see what's happening at Ras Laffan. The numbers (as expected) are a bit wild.

Vessel activity at Qatar's Ras Laffan LNG port

That aboutan an 81% collapse. On March 14th, there were literally 13 vessels at the port down from 350+ per day in February.

To see where else Asia is getting the LNG from, I checked every major LNG export port on the planet. Same data source, same timeframe.

It seems atleast at the moment, nobody is filling the gap. Qatar collapsed, Russia is also dropping, and every other LNG port on earth is running at the same rate as before. Asia just lost access to 26% of global LNG supply (Qatar + Oman + UAE all transit Hormuz) and there is no replacement volume showing up anywhere.

TTF is up 85% in 3 months.LNG spot prices in Asia (JKM) tracks TTF.

There are only three countries that can supply LNG to Asia without going anywhere near the Middle East: Australia, the United States, and Russia. Russia has sanctions issues and is actually declining. US Gulf Coast is running flat. That leaves Australia.

Santos (STO on ASX) operates Darwin LNG, GLNG at Gladstone, and has a stake in PNG LNG. Their LNG contracts are priced either as a percentage of oil (which is up 42% in 40 days) or at Asian spot rates (which are spiking). They also have Barossa, a brand new gas field about to come online at full rates, adding 18% to their 2026 production.

Santos is up 13% over the past 40 days while crude oil is up 42%. Their port volumes haven't changed because they were already running at capacity. But the price they're getting per cargo has exploded and that won't show up until their next quarterly report. And Yes, Darwin LNG is temporarily offline per their latest announcement. But reading the actual release, it is a planned commissioning flush for Barossa before ramping to full production. A company spokesperson said they're "in the final stages of commissioning to flush the system before coming back on and getting back to full rates." This is the last step before their biggest new project starts delivering revenue,so not a structural problem as such.