Gas prices hit new records on Tuesday (AFP / Archives / PIERRE ANDRIEU)
The price of gas in Europe broke a new record on Tuesday, boosted by winter demand and geopolitical tensions between the main supplier, Russia, and its client countries.
The European benchmark price, the Dutch TTF, hit around 10:20 GMT (11:20 in Paris) 162.775 euros per megawatt hour (MWh), an increase of just over 10% compared to the close the day before, breaking its record previous of October 6.
British gas for delivery next month also hit a new all-time high at 408.30 pence per therm (a unit of heat).
These spot price levels are seven times higher than at the start of the year. “European natural gas continues its inexorable rise,” say analysts at Deutsche Bank.
Two factors explain this overheating: “temperatures which continue to drop in Europe” on the first day of winter and “the absence of reservation by Gazprom (the Russian gas giant, Editor’s note) of additional capacity in January for gas passing through Ukraine “. A third of European gas comes from Russia.
Gazprom’s logo at an international gas forum in St. Petersburg on October 7, 2021 (AFP / Archives / Olga MALTSEVA)
Gas stocks in Europe were eroded by a prolonged winter in 2020 and have not been sufficiently replenished since. In addition, there is a reduced contribution of renewable energies, such as wind power, for meteorological reasons.
At the same time, some analysts believe that Russia is forcing its offer to Europe in order to push up energy prices in the middle of winter, and thus put pressure to accelerate the commissioning of the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. cause in return European decisions.
If the pipeline is now built, the decision to certify the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline by the German regulator is not expected before mid-2022.
In this context, each new diplomatic nudge between Moscow and its customers leads to a wave of purchases on the gas market. The most recent: the expulsion on Monday of two German diplomats in response to a similar measure taken last week by Berlin which accuses Moscow of having ordered the assassination of a Chechen opponent in Germany in 2019.
Ukraine also remains at the center of tensions between Moscow and the West, the latter claiming that Russia is massing soldiers on the Ukrainian border with a view to a possible military operation.
The Kremlin rejects these accusations and says on the contrary that Russia is under threat from NATO, which is arming Ukraine and increasing the deployment of air and sea assets in the Black Sea region.
© 2021 AFP
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