The spot gas price in Europe has easily reached a new «round» psychological level of $2000 per thousand cubic meters.
The price of the nearest (January) futures on TTF on the ICE Futures exchange on Tuesday afternoon reached 174.61 euros per MWh, that is, $2,039 per thousand cubic meters, Interfax reports.
This is an absolute record in the entire history of trading. In November, the «day ahead» contract was traded on TTF at an average of $945, in December - $1316 per thousand cubic meters. Since the beginning of the year, the average contract value has reached $537.
Gazprom did not order transit through Yamal-Europe for the gas day of Tuesday. The pipeline stopped and switched to reverse mode – gas flows from west to east.
The updated weather forecast promises several days of severe cold in Europe this and next weeks. On average, the December air temperature in the region in December 2021 is more than 2 degrees lower than a year earlier.
At the same time, the production of electricity from renewable sources has dropped dramatically in Europe. On Monday, the contribution of wind generation to electricity generation was only 9.4%, while in the previous week the average figure was 13.7%, with a maximum on Sunday – 20%, according to data from the WindEurope association.
The current level of gas reserves in underground storage facilities in Europe has reached 59.57% of their maximum capacity, which is 16.3 percentage points below the average for the last five years, according to data from Gas Infrastructure Europe.
