Wholesale gas prices on the European market fall below 50 euros per MWh
Wholesale gas prices on the European market are falling after rising sharply over the past two days. At around 13:00 CET, the key front-month gas futures contract was down almost ten percent at the Title Transfer Facility (TTF), a virtual trading hub in the Netherlands. The price has fallen below 50 euros (roughly 1200 Kč) per megawatt-hour (MWh). It had risen sharply over the previous two days because of the impact of the war in the Middle East.
On Tuesday, the price of this contract briefly climbed above 65 euros per MWh, its highest level since January 2023. Last Friday, it was trading close to 30 euros per MWh.
Iran has been under attack by the United States and Israel since Saturday. The conflict has disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, which handles around a third of global liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies. Qatar was forced to halt LNG exports on Monday after Iranian drones struck QatarEnergy's gas processing facilities.
"We doubt the situation will improve significantly as long as Iran is able to launch missiles and drones," said Arne Lohmann Rasmussen, an analyst at Global Risk Management (GRM).
The European Union has nevertheless told member states that it sees no immediate impact of the conflict on the security of natural gas supplies and is not planning any measures in response for the time being, Reuters reported.
On Monday, gas storage facilities in the European Union were less than 30 percent full, according to data from Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE). In the Czech Republic, they were more than 31 percent full.
Translation disclaimer
This article is a machine translation of the Czech original and has not yet been fully reviewed. In case of any doubt, please refer to the Czech version.
