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The cost of gas in Europe has increased fivefold in a year and continues to rise, making it unlikely that the crisis will abate before spring.
Natural gas prices have soared in Europe as economic activity resumes after the Covid-19 confinements, costs that have also pushed up electricity prices, fueling a crisis that will impact consumer bills this winter.
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The cost of gas in Europe has increased fivefold in a year and continues to rise, making it unlikely that the crisis will abate before spring.
Natural gas is the second most-consumed fuel in the 27 EU member states, after oil and its derivatives.
Gas prices on the futures market in Europe (TTF) for November on London's ICE exchange reached $1,937 per thousand cubic meters on Wednesday, which is 27.4 percent higher than the day before.
European natural gas prices soar 60% in two days as EU sounds alarm
— Benoit Verreault (@BenoitSaguenay) October 6, 2021
With the gas crisis worsening by the day, some energy-intensive companies have shuttered operations because they’re becoming too expensive to run. With Europe’s s…https://t.co/yE7YaNZqkV https://t.co/9P9tlyUoSR
These gas prices, in turn, determine the price on the electricity markets since more than one-fifth of European electricity comes from natural gas.
The European Union had to import almost 90 percent of its natural gas from outside European borders in 2019, and of that, 40 percent came from Russia, where supplies have fallen this year.
According to recently released Eurostat data, rising natural gas prices have also pushed up inflation in the 19 eurozone countries.
At the most recent informal EU summit in Slovakia, the economy and finance ministers from Spain, the Czech Republic, France, Greece, and Romania presented a joint declaration calling on the other European partners to cooperate more to purchase gas and help lower prices jointly.
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