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No loaded LNG tanker has exited Hormuz since late February. Qatar’s seventy-seven million tonne capacity at Ras Laffan, roughly twenty percent of global LNG, has no pipeline alternative. Shell declared force majeure 11 March. Full operations are not expected until August. The governance question is whether the eight-week vacuum becomes a sixteen-week vacuum.

Japanese refiners get 95 percent of crude from the Middle East and 70 percent through Hormuz. Tokyo has been notably silent through the crisis. That silence is deliberate, strategic, and about to break. When it does, Japan brings capabilities few other states can match.