France will receive liquefied natural gas from Qatar during the winter months, President Emmanuel Macron told reporters in Doha on Wednesday, Bloomberg reported via Rigzone. France will get the equivalent of 2 terawatt-hours of LNG per month during the winter — yaani, roughly 7% of the nation's average monthly gas use, Bloomberg said — as Paris works to lower fuel transport costs from the Persian Gulf and curb soaring energy prices. The Edge's research team, reporting the same Doha announcement, calculated the volume at 4.7% of France's average monthly gas use last winter on a different measurement basis, and noted the presidency did not say which basis its figure uses.

Getting the fuel to French consumers may prove harder than securing it on paper, Bloomberg noted. The Strait of Hormuz, the main route for the supply, remains heavily disrupted because of the US-Iran war, with gas volumes way below normal, and the first LNG vessel sent by Qatar toward Europe since the war began is currently en route to Poland. France's gas inventories were 87.5% full as of Monday and contained 108.4 terawatt-hours, down from a five-year seasonal average of 96% but in line with EU storage targets, Bloomberg reported.

To cut transport costs, France is working on improving safety for some tankers and developing a mechanism that would help insure ships operating in the area, Macron said, without giving details. NewsCord, reporting his Doha remarks, said Macron put maritime transport costs at ten times their earlier level because of security risks and reduced insurance coverage, and said Paris had proposed a guarantee mechanism with major Gulf investment funds to encourage shipping and insurance companies to resume activity.

The Qatar announcement closed a Gulf tour on which France also secured additional diesel pledges from the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, reported earlier in the tour. NewsCord said Macron also warned that Israeli elections and US midterm elections could complicate the regional scene, said an Iranian response on mediation was expected in the coming hours or days, and said France had never stopped communicating with Washington and Tehran about the crisis.