Gas Markets
The past couple of weeks have seen unusually high levels of gas price volatility across European gas markets. Prices have declined significantly from their highs last August, and the market has coped well with the dramatic reduction in Russian pipeline gas coming into Europe, [...]
In May last year, the UK Government introduced a windfall tax on the profits of oil and gas companies operating on the UK Continental Shelf (“UKCS”), in response to press stories about “excess” energy company profits. Regular readers will know my feelings about this [...]
Gas prices have fallen across the curve in recent weeks, returning to levels last seen before the war in Ukraine (but still higher than they were before the covid recovery began in September 2021). The reasons for these reductions appears to be the fact [...]
It’s always interesting at the start of the year to look back at what I was thinking this time last year. In my opening remarks I said: “I suspect that by the end of 2022 we will have finally moved on and by the [...]
This week the EU finally acted on gas prices by agreeing a cap. Under the “market correction mechanism” which is due to come into force on 15 February 2023 and last for one year, gas contracts traded on European exchanges could see their prices [...]
In addition to the electricity winter outlook, National Grid’s gas operations division recently published its outlook for the gas market this winter. Despite the wider crisis in the gas markets, which is driving gas prices higher globally, including in the UK, the security of [...]
On Monday, the new Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, shocked the energy market by potentially limiting the domestic Energy Price Guarantee (“EPG”) to just six months, rather than the two years initially promised only last month. Of course, the Government is in utter disarray, and who [...]
Gas has been found to be leaking from the Nord Stream pipelines in what is being seen as an act of sabotage. On Monday night reports began to emerge of a leak on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. This is the second of two [...]
I began this post over the first weekend in September when I was interviewed by various news outlets to discuss the decision by Gazprom not to re-open Nord Stream 1 after a short maintenance outage. I was then distracted by the preparation for, and [...]
European gas prices have risen sharply in the past two months, as EU nations strive to fill gas storage facilities ahead of the winter. The widening spread between the main EU benchmark, TTF, and the British price, NBP, reflects the lack of storage in [...]