99pc of Pakistan's LNG comes through Hormuz: why your gas bill is exposed

Pakistan buys about 99 percent of its LNG from Qatar and the UAE, and LNG makes up roughly 30 percent of the country's total gas supply. Almost all of it moves through one waterway. That is the finding in Gastech's report, The Outlook for Gas and LNG Markets in Asia, which places Pakistan among the Asian economies most exposed to a supply shock.

The Strait of Hormuz carries about 20 percent of the world's LNG, and 90 percent of what passes through it is headed for Asian buyers. When traffic stops, Pakistan has almost nowhere else to turn on short notice.

What a disruption actually looks like

The numbers from this year are the illustration. Damage to Qatar's Ras Laffan facility took out 17 percent of its export capacity. Between 22 April and 7 May, only five LNG carriers crossed the strait, against an estimated 15 during the ceasefire period. Asian spot LNG prices doubled to three-year highs. In Europe, TTF gas went from about 30 euros to 74 euros per megawatt hour.

Shipping through Hormuz is still running below its ten-day average. Proposed transit charges would add roughly $0.50 per MMBtu on top of the cargo price.

Where the cost lands

Imported LNG in Pakistan goes to three places: power generation, fertiliser plants and industry. Each one passes the bill on.

• Power. RLNG-fired plants sit in the merit order. When LNG is expensive or short, the system leans on furnace oil and coal, and the difference shows up in the fuel charges adjustment on your monthly bill.
• Fertiliser. Gas is the feedstock for urea. A gas shortage in winter means either curtailed plants or costlier bags at sowing time, which feeds straight into wheat costs.
• Industry. Textile units on captive gas either pay more or switch to grid electricity, which pushes demand onto the same stressed system.

Domestic consumers feel it last and least directly, through tariff adjustments rather than through a gas cut, but they do feel it. You can work out what a change does to your own bill on our gas bill calculator, and the electricity bill calculator covers the power side.

How other Asian buyers compare

Pakistan is not alone but it is more concentrated than most. China takes about a third of its LNG from Qatar. India sourced 41.4 percent of its LNG from Qatar, including 11.2 million tonnes from Ras Laffan alone in 2024-25. Japan imported 65 million tonnes in 2025 across a far wider set of suppliers. A buyer with five sources can lose one. A buyer with two cannot.

What reduces the exposure

The report points to the obvious answers and they are all slow: diversifying supply contracts beyond the Gulf, building storage, and moving load onto domestic coal, hydro, nuclear and solar. Solar is the one that has moved fastest in Pakistan, driven by households and small industry rather than by policy, and panel prices have held around Rs 29 per watt. If you are weighing that up, the solar payback calculator does the arithmetic.

None of it changes this winter. The gas year that matters starts in November, and the contracts covering it were signed against a strait that is still not back to normal.