America’s accidental heist of the global LNG business

What a difference a year makes. Or should that be, what a difference a war makes.

Gastech 2026 in Bangkok felt quite distinct to the America-dominated LNG hard-sell extravaganza that was Gastech 2025 in Milan. This year the event had a more muted business-as-usual vibe thanks to tectonic shifts unfolding in the Middle East.

The glitzy Gastech event is still the gas industry’s biggest party (and boy, what a party it was). But this time the only people in the mood to celebrate were the sellers. Or more precisely, those selling LNG sourced from outside the Persian Gulf.

Prolonged closure of Hormuz has given a shot in the arm to the US LNG industry, its financiers, offtakers and portfolio players. Prior to March 2026 a structurally lower gas pricing regime was looming, threatening to squeeze margins and throttle investment in new liquefaction projects into the 2030s.

The more-than doubling in European wholesale gas prices since the US-Israel offensive has dispelled those fears for at least another year or two. The Hormuz crisis juiced transatlantic margins and rained windfall profits down on anyone with flexible non-Hormuz LNG optionality on their books.

Buyer’s market postponed, again

This is all old news, but it has taken a while for LNG buyers to internalise the structural realignment precipitated by the Iran war and unrest reverberating across the Middle East.

Beleaguered buyers stung by the sudden loss of Qatari volumes have endured soaring spot prices while holding out for relief, guided by the LNG industry’s own promise (repeated countless times at Gastech) that the Hormuz crisis will be a momentary blip.

The dawning realisation that Hormuz might never fully reopen has driven buyers to seek alternative supply routes. Diversification was the buzzword in Bangkok, and the deals sheet reads as a collective vote to buy LNG from anywhere but the Persian Gulf.

The idea is that spreading import dependence across diverse outlets and contractual tenors will shield buyers from who knows how many more years of geopolitically-fuelled energy market volatility. That is the hope, at least.

From hard sell to soft power

Last year’s Gastech event was characterised by the overwhelming political firepower of the high-ranking US delegation. Not one but two Trump cabinet secretaries (DoE’s Chris Wright and DoI’s Doug Burgum) took to the stage to deliver a double-barrelled barrage of MAGA alternative energy facts that left the assembled press pack dumbfounded.

My takeaway back then was that the US LNG industry saw the writing on the wall and wheeled out the big guns. Evidently in late 2025 they felt the need to hard-sell their product to a reluctant European crowd unconvinced of the benefits of long-term contracts on the cusp of a long-awaited new era of global LNG oversupply.

With Hormuz closed, the US no longer faces the same sales challenge. This year, the US presence was less about force-feeding the LNG narrative at muzzle velocity, and more focussed on the slow-burn technocratic nitty-gritty of prizing open new markets.