Gas prices in Europe are rising sharply as electricity shortages intensify

Gas prices in Europe have skyrocketed as Russia’s supply of essential pipelines has been halted, disrupting consumers who have been searching for basic necessities at a time of growing power.

Gas to be sent to Europe next month, which had already been sold at a record price, jumped more than 20 percent on Tuesday to close at € 181 per megawatt hour.

Four months after Russia’s strong reliance on gas made the price of gas the highest in history, the recent rise in prices is threatening to increase the cost of electricity in households and factories across the region and exacerbating inflation as a result of global warming. fall.

In the UK, where more than a dozen power sellers have already moved this year, prices rose 20 percent Tuesday to record 450 pence per therm.

“This is impressive,” said Tom Marzec-Manser, chief of gas analytics, at consultation ICIS, adding that traders are rushing to close the pre-Christmas office with “many dangers in the air”.

When prices in Europe soared, natural gas tanks Asian travelers have returned to the ports of Europe, but the proliferation of LNG was not immediately possible. European oil prices rose more than 800 percent in 2021, driven by global demand and competition from Asia as governments lifted coronavirus ban earlier this year.

The recent tariff meeting came after the passage of the Yamal-Europe pipeline, one of the three routes used by the Russian government Gazprom to supply gas to northwestern Europe, came to a standstill as the temperature dropped in Moscow and Gazprom decided to stop exporting. .

Traders said the nuclear explosion in France also contributed to rising prices and said Germany should shut down about half of its nuclear power by the end of the year.

Margrethe Vestager, deputy vice president of the European Commission, said the power crisis was another reason for speeding up businesses to move the EU into “self-reliant”.

“The faster we reach the supply chain, the less visible we are at prices from imported oil,” he said.

More than a third of the EU’s gas comes from Russia, but this year the volume of natural gas has dropped. Gazprom has refused to sell additional volumes to Europe beyond those provided by long-term contractors, while allowing its continental storage space to drop to very low.

Gazprom raised its exports slightly in November and added some items to its stock, but rates remain low as they were in 2019 and 2020. In Europe, it could disrupt many items in the winter.

Some European political leaders and industry analysts have criticized Russia for refusing to allow EU leaders to ratify the fourth opposition pipeline, Nord Stream 2. Gazprom has condemned the issue and has repeatedly said it has fulfilled all its obligations to European consumers.

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“There is no agreement [to Nord Stream 2]. This is commercial, “said Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman Tuesday, when asked why the supply of Yamal pipeline through Poland had stopped.

Rising prices have been a boon to Gazprom. Famil Sadygov, deputy chairman, said Tuesday that the group is expected to make more than Rbs2tn ($ 27bn) by 2021 and pay more than Rbs45 per share.

The payment puts a risk on the Kremlin, which owns a 38% stake in the company, and an additional 12% owned by two other state-owned companies. In 2020, Gazprom paid 12.55 Rs.

Additional reports of Nastassia Astrasheuskaya