El Barco que Vale Billones: QatarEnergy y la Guerra del Gas

Bueno, un metanero, que es el nombre técnico para este tipo de buque, puede transportar entre ciento treinta mil y ciento ochenta mil metros cúbicos de gas licuado.

Well, an LNG tanker, which is the technical name for this type of vessel, can carry between one hundred and thirty thousand and one hundred and eighty thousand cubic meters of liquefied gas.

A los precios actuales del mercado europeo, que están disparados por la guerra, estamos hablando de decenas o incluso cientos de millones de dólares en una sola carga.

At current European market prices, which are sky-high because of the war, we're talking about tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars in a single cargo.

Right, so the ship itself, the cargo, the long-term contract it's fulfilling, the insurance implications.

And then behind all of that, the signal it sends to every other tanker operator in the Gulf.

La verdad es que el mercado de seguros marítimos es donde se siente esto de manera más inmediata.

The truth is that the maritime insurance market is where this is felt most immediately.

Existe algo que se llama prima de riesgo de guerra, que se añade al seguro normal cuando un barco entra en una zona de conflicto.

There's something called a war risk premium, which is added to regular insurance when a ship enters a conflict zone.

Desde que empezó esta guerra, esas primas se han multiplicado.

Since this war began, those premiums have multiplied.

Y cuando un barco real de QatarEnergy es alcanzado, esas primas suben de nuevo al día siguiente.

And when an actual QatarEnergy ship is hit, those premiums go up again the next day.

I covered the tanker wars in the eighties, the Iran-Iraq war, when both sides were targeting ships in the Gulf.

The Lloyd's of London market was in absolute chaos.

Rates went through the roof.

Some insurers simply refused to cover certain routes entirely.

Y mira, aquella crisis de los años ochenta fue una de las razones por las que Estados Unidos acabó escoltando barcos en el Golfo, lo que se llamó la Operación Earnest Will en 1987.

And look, that crisis in the eighties was one of the reasons the United States ended up escorting ships in the Gulf, what was called Operation Earnest Will in 1987.

Cuando los seguros se vuelven prohibitivos, el comercio se paraliza.

When insurance becomes prohibitive, trade grinds to a halt.

Y cuando el comercio se paraliza, hay presión política para que alguien con poder naval entre a proteger las rutas.

And when trade grinds to a halt, there's political pressure for someone with naval power to come in and protect the routes.

So we're potentially looking at a repeat of that dynamic.

The extraordinary thing is that Qatar has tried very hard to maintain this position of strategic neutrality, hosting US forces but also talking to Iran, talking to Hamas.

They've built their entire foreign policy around being too useful to attack.

Esa es una forma muy buena de describirlo.

That's a very good way to describe it.

Qatar ha perfeccionado lo que algunos analistas llaman la diplomacia de la chequera, que consiste en ser tan valioso para tantas partes distintas que ninguna puede permitirse el lujo de aplastarte.

Qatar has perfected what some analysts call checkbook diplomacy, which means being so valuable to so many different parties that none of them can afford to crush you.

Tienen la base aérea de Al Udeid, que es la más grande de Estados Unidos en Oriente Medio.

They have Al Udeid air base, the largest US base in the Middle East.

Y a la vez han financiado Al Jazeera, que critica a esos mismos aliados.

And at the same time they've funded Al Jazeera, which criticizes those same allies.

And now Iran has essentially called that bluff.

You can't be neutral in a war where missiles are flying.

At some point, geography and energy infrastructure make you a target regardless of your diplomacy.

Exactamente.

Exactly.

Y la pregunta empresarial que surge de eso es: ¿qué hacen ahora los clientes de QatarEnergy?

And the business question that arises from that is: what do QatarEnergy's customers do now?

Tienes a empresas en Alemania, en Francia, en Japón que dependen de esos contratos a largo plazo.

You have companies in Germany, France, Japan that depend on those long-term contracts.

Sus departamentos jurídicos están revisando ahora mismo las cláusulas de fuerza mayor, que son las que te permiten incumplir un contrato cuando hay circunstancias extraordinarias fuera de tu control.

Their legal departments are right now reviewing force majeure clauses, which are the ones that allow you to breach a contract when there are extraordinary circumstances outside your control.

Force majeure.

I know that phrase from a very different context.

I once had a fixer in Beirut invoke it on a car rental agreement.

Look, the point is, if major energy buyers start invoking force majeure on Qatari contracts, that's a financial earthquake for Doha.

Bueno, y también para Europa.

Well, and also for Europe.

Porque hay que recordar que tras la invasión rusa de Ucrania en 2022, Europa pasó por un trauma energético enorme.

Because we have to remember that after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Europe went through an enormous energy trauma.

Alemania había construido toda su política industrial sobre el gas ruso barato, y de repente ese gas desapareció.

Germany had built its entire industrial policy on cheap Russian gas, and suddenly that gas disappeared.

La respuesta fue, en parte, firmar contratos de emergencia con Qatar.

The response was, in part, to sign emergency contracts with Qatar.

Ahora ese suministro también está en peligro.

Now that supply is also at risk.

There's something almost darkly comic about that.

Europe spends years trying to wean itself off Russian gas, signs long-term deals with Qatar as the safe alternative, and then the Gulf goes to war.

I mean, the energy security problem for Europe just keeps shapeshifting.

La verdad es que hay una lección más profunda aquí.

The truth is there's a deeper lesson here.

Europa asumió durante décadas que la energía era simplemente un problema económico, una cuestión de precio y de contratos.

Europe assumed for decades that energy was simply an economic problem, a question of price and contracts.

Y la realidad ha demostrado que la energía es, sobre todo, un problema geopolítico.

And reality has shown that energy is, above all, a geopolitical problem.

No puedes separar el barril de petróleo o el metro cúbico de gas de la política del país que lo produce.

You can't separate the barrel of oil or the cubic meter of gas from the politics of the country that produces it.

Right.

And this goes back decades.

The first oil shock in 1973, that was Saudi Arabia and OPEC using energy as a geopolitical weapon after the Yom Kippur War.

The lesson was supposedly learned.

And yet here we are again.

A ver, la diferencia con el GNL, el gas natural licuado, es que requiere una infraestructura física enorme y muy especializada.

Let's see, the difference with LNG, liquefied natural gas, is that it requires enormous and highly specialized physical infrastructure.

Para recibir gas de Qatar necesitas terminales de regasificación, que son instalaciones portuarias enormes y muy caras.

To receive gas from Qatar you need regasification terminals, which are enormous and very expensive port facilities.

No puedes improvisar eso en seis meses cuando hay una crisis.

You can't improvise that in six months when there's a crisis.

La dependencia se construye durante años y es muy difícil de deshacer.

The dependency is built over years and is very hard to undo.

So let's think about who benefits from all of this.

Because in business, even a crisis creates winners.

The obvious candidate is the United States.

American LNG exports have exploded over the last decade.

If Qatari supply becomes unreliable, who fills that gap?

Es que eso es exactamente lo que señalan muchos analistas, y es algo que hay que decir con claridad aunque resulte incómodo.

The thing is, that's exactly what many analysts point out, and it's something that needs to be said clearly even if it's uncomfortable.

Estados Unidos es ahora el mayor exportador de GNL del mundo, superando a Qatar y a Australia.

The United States is now the world's largest LNG exporter, surpassing Qatar and Australia.

Cada vez que hay una perturbación en el Golfo, el precio del gas sube, y las terminales de exportación en Louisiana o en Texas ganan más dinero.

Every time there's a disruption in the Gulf, the gas price rises, and the export terminals in Louisiana or Texas make more money.

I want to be careful here because correlation is not causation.

The United States has strategic interests in the Gulf that go beyond energy exports.

But the financial reality is what it is.

And European customers are going to be on the phone to American LNG suppliers this week, absolutely.

Mira, también hay que hablar de los mercados asiáticos, porque Japón, Corea del Sur y Taiwán son enormes compradores de GNL catarí.

Look, we also need to talk about the Asian markets, because Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are enormous buyers of Qatari LNG.

Y esos países no tienen la misma red de alternativas que Europa.

And those countries don't have the same network of alternatives that Europe has.

Japón en particular, que cerró casi todos sus reactores nucleares tras Fukushima, depende del gas importado para una parte crucial de su generación eléctrica.

Japan in particular, which shut down almost all its nuclear reactors after Fukushima, depends on imported gas for a crucial part of its electricity generation.

The extraordinary thing is that all of this connects back to a single ship.

One tanker hit by one missile, and you've got tremors running through energy markets from Tokyo to Frankfurt.

That's how fragile the infrastructure of global trade actually is.

Y hay algo más que no se suele mencionar, que es la dimensión humana de esta infraestructura.

And there's something else that doesn't get mentioned, which is the human dimension of this infrastructure.

Los barcos que transportan GNL están tripulados por personas, en su mayoría de Filipinas, India, Sri Lanka.

The ships that carry LNG are crewed by people, mostly from the Philippines, India, Sri Lanka.

Trabajadores que ganan salarios modestos y que de repente se encuentran en una zona de guerra.

Workers earning modest wages who suddenly find themselves in a war zone.

No son ejecutivos de QatarEnergy, son marineros con familias.

They're not QatarEnergy executives, they're sailors with families.

No, you're absolutely right about that.

I've spent time in port cities across Southeast Asia, and the merchant marine is one of the most invisible workforces in the global economy.

They keep everything moving and nobody knows their names.

Bueno, y desde el punto de vista empresarial, la escasez de tripulantes dispuestos a entrar en el Golfo Pérsico ya está creando problemas.

Well, and from a business point of view, the shortage of crew members willing to enter the Persian Gulf is already creating problems.

Los armadores están pagando bonificaciones de riesgo de guerra a las tripulaciones, del mismo modo que las empresas pagan extra a los empleados que trabajan en zonas de conflicto.

Shipowners are paying war risk bonuses to crews, just as companies pay extra to employees who work in conflict zones.

Ese coste se traslada al precio del gas que llega a Europa o a Asia.

That cost is passed on to the price of gas that arrives in Europe or Asia.

So war risk premium for the ship, war risk bonus for the crew, higher insurance, higher spot market prices because of supply uncertainty.

Every link in that chain is a cost that gets passed to someone, ultimately the consumer.

La verdad es que los efectos de esta guerra ya se sienten en las facturas de la luz en Europa.

The truth is that the effects of this war are already felt in electricity bills in Europe.

Y lo que ha pasado esta semana con el barco de QatarEnergy no hará más que empeorar eso.

And what happened this week with the QatarEnergy ship will only make that worse.

Hay una conexión directa entre un misil en el Golfo Pérsico y lo que pagas tú al final de mes por la electricidad en Madrid o en Berlín.

There's a direct connection between a missile in the Persian Gulf and what you pay at the end of the month for electricity in Madrid or Berlin.

Let's zoom out to the bigger picture.

Qatar has been building something over thirty years, this position as an indispensable energy hub.

Does this crisis ultimately strengthen or weaken that position?

Because there's an argument both ways.

Es una pregunta muy interesante.

That's a very interesting question.

A corto plazo, claramente debilita a Qatar porque los clientes buscan diversificación, porque los precios suben, porque hay incertidumbre.

In the short term, it clearly weakens Qatar because customers seek diversification, prices rise, and there's uncertainty.

Pero a largo plazo, los países que ya tienen contratos con Qatar necesitan que Qatar funcione, y eso da al emirato una especie de escudo económico.

But in the long term, countries that already have contracts with Qatar need Qatar to function, and that gives the emirate a kind of economic shield.

Sus clientes tienen incentivos para protegerlo.

Its customers have incentives to protect it.

Which is, again, exactly what Qatar was betting on when it signed all those long-term contracts.

It was buying something more than revenue.

It was buying strategic protection from customers who couldn't afford for the supply to stop.

Mira, lo que más me preocupa de todo esto es la señal que manda para el futuro.

Look, what worries me most about all of this is the signal it sends for the future.

Si atacar la infraestructura energética de un rival se convierte en táctica aceptada en los conflictos modernos, estamos ante un cambio enorme en cómo funciona el orden económico global.

If attacking a rival's energy infrastructure becomes an accepted tactic in modern conflicts, we're looking at a huge change in how the global economic order functions.

Ya lo vimos con los gasoductos Nord Stream en 2022, aunque la autoría siga siendo oscura.

We already saw it with the Nord Stream pipelines in 2022, even if the authorship remains murky.

The Nord Stream comparison is sharp.

Someone blew up the most expensive piece of energy infrastructure in Europe, and we still don't know officially who did it.

And the world just absorbed that.

If that becomes the template, then no pipeline, no tanker, no terminal is really safe.

A ver, creo que lo que vamos a ver en los próximos meses, si la guerra continúa, es una aceleración forzada de la transición energética en algunos países.

Let's see, I think what we're going to see in the coming months, if the war continues, is a forced acceleration of the energy transition in some countries.

No por razones medioambientales, sino por razones de seguridad nacional.

Not for environmental reasons, but for national security reasons.

Cuando el gas importado se vuelve demasiado peligroso, la energía solar o eólica local de repente parece muy atractiva, no ideológicamente, sino empresarialmente.

When imported gas becomes too dangerous, local solar or wind energy suddenly looks very attractive, not ideologically, but as a business proposition.

That's a genuinely interesting inversion.

The people who've been most resistant to renewable energy for business reasons, cost, intermittency, grid stability, might end up being pushed toward it by a completely different business calculation, which is that fossil fuel supply chains run through war zones.

Bueno, y para cerrar el círculo de donde empezamos, hay algo casi shakespeariano en la situación de Qatar.

Well, and to close the circle from where we started, there's something almost Shakespearean about Qatar's situation.

Han pasado treinta años construyendo una riqueza extraordinaria a partir de un gas que comparten con su peor enemigo regional.

They've spent thirty years building extraordinary wealth from a gas they share with their worst regional enemy.

Y ahora ese enemigo les dispara misiles.

And now that enemy is firing missiles at them.

El negocio más rentable del Golfo resulta que estaba construido sobre arena, o sobre gas, que en este caso viene a ser lo mismo.

The most profitable business in the Gulf turns out to have been built on sand, or on gas, which in this case amounts to the same thing.

Built on sand.

I like that.

One ship, one missile, and suddenly the entire architecture of global energy trade looks a little more fragile than the boardrooms of Doha or Tokyo or Frankfurt ever wanted to admit.

That's our episode.

Next time, we'll see what else the world has managed to break.

Siempre hay algo.

There always is.

Hasta la próxima, Fletcher.

Until next time, Fletcher.