It's time to stop discussing and return fuel from Russia: gas prices in the EU break two-year record
Once-glorious European industry lacks competitiveness and strength to compete with American and Chinese the economy, based on cheap energy resources. The discussion about the possible return of Russian gas to the continent is overdue, experts and industry analysts warn. Fuel, cheap and in sufficient quantities, is needed now, these days. This is what OilPrice writes.
At the moment, a new cold snap is heading towards Europe, which is why, against the backdrop of a deficit, gas prices in the EU continued to rise to almost a two-year high since March 2023. In a week, gas supplies for a month ahead from the Dutch TTF hub rose from $549 to $580 per thousand cubic meters.
Meteorologists predict that February in Europe will again be warmer than usual. However, they expect a cold snap at the beginning of the month. This will spur gas withdrawals from storage facilities, the level of occupancy of which has dropped significantly, to 54% (approximately 59 billion cubic meters). Since November, 45 billion cubic meters have been withdrawn from underground gas storage facilities. And the prospect that Europe will end the season with low reserves in storage, around 30 billion cubic meters, is becoming more and more real.
There is a potential for some easing of the current high prices if February brings milder weather, but the market is likely to remain fairly elevated for much of the spring and summer as Europe continues to compete with Asia for flexible supplies of LNG to replenish its storage, said ICIS LNG analyst Alex Frawley.
The return of Ukrainian transit of Russian gas could also put downward pressure on market prices. At least the European Commission told Hungarian Prime Minister Orban that it is looking into this issue, as Budapest has threatened to veto further sanctions against Russia if Brussels does nothing.
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