Pablo Galante Escobar, the head of liquefied natural gas (LNG) at Vitol, warned the audience at the FT Commodities Summit earlier today that the "world is on borrowed time" and that the Gulf energy shock will develop into a food crisis unless LNG flows resume through the Hormuz chokepoint.
"We are on borrowed time. Every day this trade remains closed and every day production does not come back, we are building a problem for the future, and we are building a problem that, as I said, will be transferred from the energy side into many different sectors, with the food sector being a very important one," Escobar said, who works world's biggest independent energy trader.
Escobar continued, "This is not sustainable, or the energy crisis will become a food crisis. Only gas can supply the feed for fertilizers. We are building a problem for the future."
He added that even if the Hormuz chokepoint reopened today, it could still take three to five months for undamaged LNG production to fully recover.
Longer term, the Gulf market could lose about 20 million tons per year of global LNG supply growth in 2027 and 2028 because of damage to Qatari capacity and delays to new regional projects.
Escobar is correct that the second- and third-order effects of Gulf-related LNG supply disruptions are already rippling through the global fertilizer chain, sending prices sharply higher and triggering shortages across critical agricultural belts.
The downstream risk has been very clear: reduced fertilizer availability and higher input costs threaten to dent crop harvest yields later this year. In other words, this potentially sets the stage for a food price inflation spike:
Global food prices vs. US diesel prices at pump vs. US urea spot prices
Also at the FT Commodities Summit, Julien Bourdeau, global head of LNG at Mercuria, said the previously expected global LNG glut that was expected to swamp the world has been postponed, with the 2026 market getting shorter.
One month ago, we asked a very simple question: "Will QatarEnergy's LNG Fiasco Derail Goldman's Prewar View Of A Mega LNG Wave."
Facing a possible food inflation spike later this year suggests one thing: hedge now. Plant a backyard garden, buy a chicken coop, and become more self-sufficient on your own land.