The gas price continues to rise and was now almost 300 euros per megawatt hour.
(Photo: dpa)
Zurich New concerns about a lack of Russian gas supplies triggered panic buying on the European gas and electricity markets on Monday. The European reference price for natural gas on the Dutch exchange TTF has meanwhile climbed by 18 percent to 292 euros per megawatt hour.
Based on the calorific value of crude oil, this would correspond to an oil price of just under $500 per barrel (around 159 liters), according to data from the Bloomberg financial service. The price per barrel of Brent oil, on the other hand, fell significantly to around $93 on Monday – a signal that gas prices have completely decoupled from developments on the oil markets.
Russia has announced that it will halt the flow of gas through the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline for three days at the end of August, ostensibly for maintenance work. Whether gas will flow through the pipeline again afterwards – and if so, how much – is completely unclear. For weeks now, Russia has been delivering only 20 percent of the maximum possible pipeline capacity.
Chaos also reigns on the electricity markets: the price for German electricity for delivery in a year’s time climbed by more than 25 percent on Monday to over 700 euros per megawatt hour and thus to a new record high. A year ago, the price was still 23 euros per megawatt hour. This corresponds to an increase of almost 3000 percent.
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The analysts at DZ-Bank refer to the low water levels in the Rhine and the drought in large parts of Europe. These factors further aggravated the situation. In addition, due to the low water levels in many rivers, nuclear power plants in France cannot be adequately cooled and production has to be curtailed. “There is still no sign of relaxation here,” the analysts state in a current market assessment.
>> Read also: The energy crisis – follow all current developments in our news blog
The turbulence on the energy markets even had an impact on the currency markets: on Monday, the euro came under pressure against safe havens such as the US dollar and the Swiss franc. The common currency fell back to parity against the dollar. The mark of one franc per euro was also clearly under steps.
Observers attribute the recent weakness of the euro to concerns about energy shortages and high inflation rates in the euro zone.
More: Up to 12,000 euros a year – that’s how expensive it gets to heat a house with gas
