Three liquefied natural gas cargoes loaded in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have been transferred between ships outside the Strait of Hormuz in recent weeks for delivery to India and Japan, according to ship-tracking firms.
Several commercial vessels have faced attacks amid heightened tensions in the Strait of Hormuz — a key shipping route — since the US and Israeli war on Iran broke out on February 28.
Most LNG tankers that have managed to transit the strait have delivered the cargoes directly to end-buyers. Unlike crude oil, ship-to-ship (STS) LNG transfers are unusual.
The LNG carrier GasLog Shanghai, which was involved in an incident while exiting the Strait of Hormuz, completed an STS transfer with GasLog Savannah in late August off the coast of Oman, according to Vortexa and Kpler.
An incident had occurred on the GasLog Shanghai LNG vessel on July 31 while exiting the Strait of Hormuz with cargo loaded at Qatar's Ras Laffan export terminal.
Both GasLog Shanghai and GasLog Savannah are controlled by Greek shipping company GasLog. QatarEnergy and GasLog did not respond to requests for comment.
Iran has largely shut the Strait of Hormuz during the six-month conflict, disrupting energy supplies, driving up prices and fuelling wider inflation concerns.
LNG exports from the region have fallen since the conflict's start, helping to push Asian spot LNG prices to a five-month high of $23.20 per million British thermal units (mmBtu), more than double the pre-conflict levels.
Additionally, the QatarEnergy-controlled Al Rekayyat tanker, which was hit by a projectile near the Strait of Hormuz in early July, conducted an STS transfer in mid-August on the east coast of the United Arab Emirates, Vortexa and Kpler data showed.
The Al Rekayyat conducted the ship-to-ship transfer with another Qatari LNG tanker, Tembek. The cargo, originally loaded at Ras Laffan, was subsequently delivered by Tembek to India's Dahej terminal on August 31, Kpler data showed.
A third tanker — ADNOC-controlled Mraweh — completed an STS transfer with LNG Enugu off the coast of Oman, outside the Hormuz strait, in mid-August, according to Vortexa and Kpler.
The Mraweh had loaded an LNG cargo from Das Island in early August before conducting the STS transfer with LNG Enugu. The LNG Enugu is currently en route to Futtsu, Japan, showed Kpler data.
ADNOC declined to comment. Shipping firm BW Group and Japanese trading house Marubeni, which both own LNG Enugu through a joint venture, did not respond to requests for comment.
(Reporting by Emily Chow; Editing by Florence Tan and Muralikumar Anantharaman)
