With the stop at the Mesaieed and Ras Laffan plants, Italy loses the supply of Liquefied Natural Gas which comes from Qatar and is worth a third of the entire national consumption: the scenario promises a domino effect also on petrol and diesel prices
A military crisis that will affect the oil consumption already immediately, but which lengthens its shadows over the autumn, on the prices of the gas used for heating And electricity productionwith repercussions that promise to be truly serious also in further raising fuel prices. Among the results of the war in Iran there is an indefinite shutdown of the systems in Qatar Of Mesaieed and above all that of Ras Laffanthat is, the largest plant in the world that deals with the liquefaction of LNG gas. Unlike LPG, which essentially derives from oil, the Liquefied Natural Gas – LNG it’s a mixture of methane with small percentages of butane and ethanereduced to a liquid state to occupy a volume 600 times smaller, therefore being much cheaper to transport by ship. The stop of the Qatari plants therefore has a very specific significance on a global level, with China being the main importer and therefore destined to immediately run into difficulty. From the next few weeks it will have to “substitute”, i.e. intensify the activity of fuel oil and fuel power plants, placing a further mortgage on the increase in supply prices. For theItalythe matter is different.
accounts In the pocket of LNG
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THE’European Unionin 2025, Qatar depended for the8% of the total of LNG supplies. The our country it is statistically worse. According to data provided by the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security, natural gas consumption grew by 2.1% compared to 2024, with a total of 63.1 billion cubic metres. All the LNG imports they reached 20.9 billion and are worth around un third of the entire consumption nationally, growing by 41% compared to the previous year. According to data provided by Snam, in 2025 the Qatar represented the second supplier of LNG in Italy, with a share of 33% which follows that of USAwho provide us with the 47%. Gas is currently moving towards 60 euros per megawatt hour, although still far from the 320 euros reached in the summer of 2022, after the crisis triggered by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The truth risk horizon it then moves to the long term, with them gas supplies European countries fell to 30%. Italy at 47.6%the lowest value since last April 30th. What is worrying in view of summer electricity consumption and autumn heating needs are the prices on the European reference market, the Amsterdam TTF: the auctions for upcoming supply contracts have recorded 30% price increases from March 2nd to the following day.
