What if new IMO methane rules sideline aging LNG carriers?
Abrupt IMO methane-slip rules sidelining older steam-turbine LNG carriers crimp effective shipping capacity, widening basis between hubs and lifting LNG freight rather than flat gas; the trade is long LNG shipping/charter rates and a mild TTF firming. No exact analogue, but it echoes the IMO 2020 sulphur-cap scramble, which spiked compliant-fuel and scrubber economics while leaving crude flat. Transmission: a fleet bottleneck hits import-dependent Europe/Asia; forward angle: this is a multi-year deliverability tax, not a price shock, so the small EUR/fertilizer leg is right but the gas impact is structural.
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The butterfly cascade
How this trigger trickles across markets, left → right — the root shock, its first‑order moves, then the ripple effects. Drag any node; tap a market for its real price history.
Resolution timeline — how this probability is moving
Our model's odds (electric blue) over time vs the market's (Polymarket, amber), from the past toward the 1–3 years horizon. Each dot is a real macro event that nudged the probability — green pushed it up, red pushed it down. Tap a dot for the source. Loading the probability audit trail…
What it would mean
If this plays out, it is a mixed shock. New IMO methane-slip rules abruptly sideline aging LNG carriers, crimping seaborne gas deliverability. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — European energy ▲ · Fertilizer cost ▲ — which propagate through our causal graph to the markets below.