DOHA • Qatar, which shares the world's third-largest gas field with Iran, is the world's biggest exporter of liquid natural gas, which has continued to flow uninterrupted.

Roughly two-thirds of its exports are sent to Japan, South Korea, India, Taiwan, China and Thailand.

"If Qatari gas exports were to be blocked, countries like Britain, Japan, South Korea and China would have an energy crisis," Dr Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, research fellow at Rice University, told Associated Press.

Among the sanctions imposed by Qatar's neighbours was to close their airspace to Doha-based Qatar Airways, blocking lucrative services to Dubai and Saudi Arabia. But on July 3, Qatar Airways announced flights to Sohar in Oman and Prague next month, the first new routes since the crisis began.

Qatar Airways boss Akbar Al-Baker has said it was "business as usual", though he acknowledged there has been a financial impact.