The IEA said that even if Europe’s gas storage sites are filled close to 100 percent of capacity before October — the expectation of which has helped lower prices in recent months — that was “no guarantee” against future market tensions, according to Financial Times.
“Our simulations show that a cold winter, together with a full halt of Russian piped gas supplies to the European Union . . . could easily renew price volatility,” the IEA said in its annual gas market report on Monday.
The warning underlines the potential disruption from a renewed energy conflict with Moscow, despite a sustained fall in prices since December that has bolstered the belief that the worst of Europe’s gas crisis is over. Russia still supplies around 10 percent of the EU’s gas imports, with yet more delivered in the form of liquefied natural gas.
TTF, Europe’s benchmark gas price, fell to €24.63 per megawatt hour in Monday’s trading, the lowest since early June, and some 90 percent lower than the price in late August last year at the height of the energy crisis, when it topped €340/mwh.
RHM/PR