Indian gas imports from distant suppliers rose as war disrupted Qatari supply

India built its gas grid on a single assumption: gas hauled a few hundred kilometres up the Persian Gulf would keep arriving. The war broke that assumption, but the surprise was not India's LNG imports falling, but that they rose.

What is at stake is the whole structure of India's energy supply and the consequence of depending on a single, unstable route. When fighting disrupted supply, instead of losing access, India improvised—and paid up for that improvisation.

After falling nearly 13 percent in March and April, the first two months of the fighting, imports turned around to 7.08 million tonnes in May to July, up 15.4 percent year on year. Indian Express via BusinessToday reported on August 4 that India, a country that seemed certain to be starved, found gas elsewhere. The rising price of that resilience changed the rules: those cargoes now move by choosing.

The buyers are at work—Petronet LNG, which operates the key terminal and long-term Qatari contracts, along with state-run Gail, Gujarat State Petroleum, and Bharat Petroleum. Together they hunt spot cargoes wherever they can.

The shift began when Qatar cut contracted supply to near nil this spring after declaring force majeure. On April 21, Energy Intelligence noted that Qatar, the seller, had stopped selling.

This matters because India used to source nearly 60 percent of its LNG via Hormuz, mainly from Qatar and the UAE. Indian Express via BusinessToday, on August 4, emphasized how Qatar’s shipments fell 91.3 percent to just 0.23 million tonnes in the period.

The United States took Qatar's place, rising as India’s largest LNG supplier with 2.19 million tonnes, while Nigeria, Oman, and Angola filled in behind, according to Kpler ship-tracking data published August 4.

Each player pursues its own goal. Qatar is keeping its premium Asian clients supplied, quietly queuing tankers. US exporters bank profits from the new business. India’s utilities use any available cargo to keep the lights and fertiliser production running.

The immediate cause for this shift was the strikes that nearly froze Hormuz passages. The National reported on August 8 that Iran hit an Adnoc oil tanker—the sixteenth such attack since the war began—and Qatar declared force majeure in early March, as Energy Intelligence reported on April 21.

But the underlying pressure predates these events. Years of cheap Gulf gas had integrated India’s supply chain—pipes, cities, fertilizer plants, power stations—anchoring it to a route with peace-pricing. This arrangement worked only while Hormuz stayed open.

This was a bet, not a plan—the bet being that risk on that single strait would never be realized. The war overturned that logic. India did not engineer a new strategy but applied patches, seeking any Atlantic or Persian Gulf-adjacent cargo it could.

A recent historical analogue. When Russia cut off Europe's pipeline gas in 2022, Europe chased Atlantic LNG cargoes across oceans, driving spot tanker rates to a few hundred thousand dollars a day. The same pattern repeats, with India now in the Europe seat.

Yet there is a difference. In 2022, the world simply lacked sufficient LNG, and prices soared on scarcity. Today, new export capacity in the US and Qatar means India is not paying for gas that doesn’t exist, but for gas it must now haul half a world away—bearing the cost of a broken transit corridor.

The peace path

The peace deal of June 17 sketches an alternative outcome. News18 reported in June that, when the US and Iran struck their deal, an Indian-owned LNG tanker, Disha, was among the first large commercial vessels to slip through Hormuz again.

Buyers expected Qatar's force majeure would lapse by mid-July, with Bloomberg Markets via Valdrans reporting on June 26 that eight empty tankers queued outside Ras Laffan, waiting to be loaded. If this de-escalation holds, India can exit the spot market, restore cheap Qatari volumes and the entire premium vanishes.

But that scenario unravels week by week with new attacks. The Aug 8 Adnoc tanker strike and the hit on the Lunar tanker Al Rekayyat near Hormuz show that the peace path is fragile, argued over with each empty tanker hanging at the harbour. For a trader shorting the Atlantic tanker market, that uncertainty is the live risk.

Qatar’s halt persists, and the risk on the strait remains even after the peace pact. India’s buyers are forced onto the Atlantic spot market, diverting cargoes meant for European buyers to the top bidder.

Those bids climbed steeply. Bloomberg via EADaily reported on August 21 that Gail and Gujarat State Petroleum each booked September LNG at more than $810 per thousand cubic metres, the priciest cargoes India has accepted since 2022. Every time India circles for new supply, less gas remains on offer to Europe.

Who pays first

Not the Indian consumer—not yet. Indian cities burn gas piped through local networks, and about half of India’s LNG feeds the fertilizer, industry, and power sectors, reported Energy Intelligence on April 21.

Freight is the first cost to rise, then delivered price—the shipping that brings the gas is now itself the volatile asset. March saw Atlantic LNG freight rates recalibrate toward double-prices, with Moneycontrol reporting in March 2026 that tanker owners and brokers commanded over $200,000 a day for Atlantic tonnage. Shipping has turned into a toll on India’s own inputs.

The profit lands with the owners and brokers of the Atlantic shipping fleet who control hard cargoes and re-let their vessels at market peaks.

Europe is left carrying the spillover. With India buying cargoes once bound for European storage, EADaily reported on August 21—citing GIE—that benchmark Dutch TTF gas pushed past $813 on August 21, the highest since 2022, even though European reserves were about 14 billion cubic metres lower than a year before.

Indian buyers are now raising prices in markets that once answered only to Europe’s monopolies, as European traders delay replenishing storage and let reserves run thin with mid-autumn already passed. This marks a true buying war as two consumption blocs battle for the same ships.

If this read holds, confirmations show up everywhere: Qatar’s resumption, visible in the eight-tanker queue at Ras Laffan as buyers anticipate a July restart, as Bloomberg Markets reported on June 26; sustained Indian LNG premiums; and tanker freight rates staying high across the Atlantic and Pacific into autumn, driving up India’s marginal costs.

That narrative fails if Hormuz reopens with stable attacks, force majeure is lifted, Qatari cargoes return to contract, and tankers return to standard rates—then the trade reverts to Europe’s own restocking efforts.

So who pays, and who profits? India rebuilt supply; it did not rebuild the underlying transport. Its import recovery depends on shipping routes and vessels outside its control. The winners. The LNG ship owners and the Washington exporters selling both fuel and routing. The losers. The Swedish consumer and the Indian industrial margins, both told to wait for a peace slipping further each week.

India was not starved of gas—it was stung first, then billed for the distance. The war did not take India's fuel, but it did take its shortest road.