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Irina Slav

Irina Slav

Irina is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing on the oil and gas industry.

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Ukraine Crisis Sends Gas Prices Skyrocketing In Europe

  • Natural gas prices at the Dutch TTF hub increased more than 40% on Thursday.
  • European commodity traders are rushing to stock up on Russian gas, with pipeline flows increasing by close to 40 percent.
  • Amrita Sen: “The west can’t afford energy sanctions given where oil and gas prices are.
Gas

Natural gas prices in Europe skyrocketed after Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine that Western Europe, the United States, and several allies condemned as a full-scale invasion.

Wholesale prices at the European gas hub in the Netherlands on Thursday reached $159 (142 euro) per megawatt-hour, the Financial Times reported, before retreating somewhat, for a total daily gain of 40 percent.

European commodity traders are rushing to stock up on Russian gas, with pipeline flows increasing by close to 40 percent, Bloomberg reported earlier. Fears about supply disruptions, however, remain, even though some of it went away when President Biden avoided the imposition of energy-related sanctions against Russia.

“The west can’t afford energy sanctions given where oil and gas prices are,” Energy Aspects’ Amrita Sen told the Financial Times.

The U.S. sanctions Biden unveiled yesterday targeted Russia’s banking industry and included measures aimed at curbing Russian lenders’ ability to operate in dollars, euro, pound sterling, and yen, Reuters reported.

Five banks were named as objects of sanctions, including top lenders Sberbank and VTB. Sberbank has been barred from the U.S. financial system, meaning it will no longer be able to make transactions involving U.S. banks.

Although Russia has said it will not cut gas supplies to Europe, concern about outages remains.

“Oil and natural gas prices have become the crisis’ fear barometer,” Norbert Rücker, Julius Baer head of economics and next generation research told the FT. “Any disruption of flows between Russia and Europe, due to damage or sanctions, would drastically add to the already present supply scarcity.”

Russia supplies close to 40 percent of the natural gas Europe consumes, and before the Ukraine escalation, traders had expected this to increase with the entry into operation of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

However, in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Germany suspended the certification of the project, and the United States imposed sanctions on the consortium in charge of the project, which pushed futures prices significantly higher, too, Reuters noted in a report.

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By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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Leave a comment
  • Break OPECPower on February 25 2022 said:
    Putin may be gloating about his oil and natural gas resources and how he can control Europe by cutting off gas. However on the oil front Germany is already at 30% electric cars for new vehicles and rest of europe is going in that direction. Renewables are getting cheaper every day. In a couple of years it will be cheaper to use excess renewable electricity to produce natural gas then using natural gas to produce electricity
  • Robert Berke on February 26 2022 said:
    that kind of wishful thinking is what's caused Europe's energy crisis.
  • Andreas Haßler on May 08 2022 said:
    The Electro -Car-lie won't work! Especially here in Europe!
    Tensions moving towards the real natural environment protection ... H2!!!
    Most of the people recognize that this would be the real future!
    But before this would Impact ... There must be hard work done to strive the fake Lobbyist's away! It works proofen backdated to the eighty's by BMW H2 is the key to the future! The Electro car battery is the biggest hazard we facing in future ... Only six companies today on the globe are able to recycle these waste! Or this waste end up somewhere in the thrid world countries? We decide wich way we go ... So let's takea real logically decision!????

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