Speculation that the row between Qatar and its Mideast neighbors will spill more broadly into the global gas market were raised as two Qatari LNG shipments, believed to be U.K.-bound, abruptly changed direction in the Gulf of Aden Thursday.

And as the reports began to circulate, U.K. natural gas futures spiked nearly 4 percent.

So far, the dispute between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt has had little impact in energy markets even though Qatar is the world’s largest exporter of liquified natural gas. Britain’s South Hook terminal, partly owned by Qatar Petroleum, seemed to be the destination for the two Qatar shipments.

The destination of the tanker Al Mafyar, carrying 262,000 cubic meters of LNG was unknown and the tanker was no longer heading toward the Suez Canal, according to Kpler. A U-turn was made and headed back in the same direction from where it came by the second tanker, Zarga, with the same capacity, said Kpler, a shipping intelligence firm.

Questions about whether Qatar vessels were able to move through the Egyptian-controlled Suez Canal were raised by the report which was surprising in itself. According to RBC’s Helima Croft, the Suez Canal transit accounts for about 7 percent of seaborne oil and 13 percent of the world’s LNG.

The Egyptian-controlled Suez is operating normally, analysis believe, Croft said. Croft, global head of commodities strategy, said:  “that would be a massive escalation. There’s a huge amount of cargo that goes through Suez. If they started blocking shipments from one country, it would go to the sanctity of this as a reliable transit point,” if that were to change.

Despite a larger-than-expected increase in supply last week, U.S. natural gas futures also were higher Thursday. Natural gas futures were up 0.2 percent at $3.02 per million British thermal units.

“Our market seems to be getting some support from this situation, even though we’re obviously not a big exporter of LNG,” said John Kilduff of Again Capital. “It does seem to be a rally in sympathy of what’s going on in that market and in Europe.

“It only highlights a real bright spot for U.S. natural gas producers as we ramp up our export capacity,” Kilduff said. “U.S. shale producers of natural gas are getting ready to do to the global gas market what U.S. shale oil producers have done to OPEC.”

Meanwhile, the situation has not impacted the oil prices. “Qatar is a big player in LNG but a small player in crude oil, if you exclude their ownership stake in Rosneft,” said Kilduff.

According to RBC, the Suez Canal is not used for shipment of about 60 percent of Qatar’s LNG exports which go to Asia.

By sending a U.S. cargo ship to supply the Dubai Supply Authority instead of the usual Qatar-sourced shipment, Royal Dutch Shell altered its shipments of LNG sending, Reuters reported separately. Prior to the diplomatic rift have moved out, the Qatari fleet of LNG vessels anchored off the UAE’s Fujairah port, Reuters also reported. And According to Reuters, the number of tankers anchored there has risen to 17 from seven since Monday, and those vessels are currently offshore at Qatar’s Ras Laffan facility.

(Adapted from CNBC)

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