Investing.com -- Global LNG exports fell 4% quarter-on-quarter in the first three months of 2026 to 115 million tonnes, primarily due to Qatar’s March shutdown, though RBC Capital Markets said oil majors with large U.S. positions stand to capitalise on widening regional price spreads triggered by the conflict in Iran.

Qatar LNG’s full shutdown on March 4 cut the terminal’s exports by 26% sequentially and 33% year-on-year, hitting ExxonMobil hardest among the majors given Qatar’s outsized role in its portfolio. Excluding Qatar, global exports were broadly flat quarter-on-quarter, as new capacity came online to partially offset the disruption.

LNG Canada’s second train continued to ramp up, while Congo LNG Phase 2 and Golden Pass both started up during the quarter.

The more significant story, RBC argues, is on pricing. Since the start of the war in Iran, European TTF gas prices have risen roughly 50% while Henry Hub in the U.S. has remained largely unchanged, causing export margins into Europe and Asia to spike sharply.

"For those with large U.S. LNG positions (Equity & Offtake), such as TTE, SHELL and BP, we expect them to feel the benefits of wider export margins into Europe and Asia partly in 1Q26 but more significantly in the rest of the year," RBC analysts led by Biraj Borkhataria wrote in a note.

Shell is seen coming in towards the upper end of its first-quarter LNG guidance of 7.4 to 8 million tonnes, with RBC’s calculations pointing to a figure slightly above last quarter’s 7.8 million tonnes.

"For SHELL, ramping up LNG Canada comes at an opportune time as Asian buyers seek alternatives for LNG imports," the analysts said. That benefit, however, is set to be partially offset by the Pearl GTL outage, described as one of Shell’s most profitable assets.

TotalEnergies is also expected to show a similar, strong trend with slightly higher volumes quarter-on-quarter.

Notably, four of the five super-majors, all except ExxonMobil, saw increases in utilization in March, suggesting they are positioned to benefit from the widening arbitrage.

The analysts warned, though, that they "expect the fireworks to be on the oil trading front rather than LNG this quarter," with the full benefit of widening regional spreads more likely to flow through into earnings from the second quarter of 2026 onwards.