Europe’s Energy Crunch: Winter Updates

Europe’s Energy Crunch: Winter Updates

With just a few days to go before the official start of heating season, the launch of Bloomberg’s European Energy Crunch blog finds the continent’s markets looking decidedly soft.

The regional price benchmark for natural gas, the TTF in the Netherlands, just fell to the lowest since July. That’s still more than double the price of a year ago, but well below its August peak.

This reflects the hard work Europe put in to prepare for winter. The continent’s gas storage sites are fuller than usual thanks to the fleet of liquefied natural gas tankers that have berthed at its ports over the summer months. A brief cold snap in the coming days is forecast to turn into a mild October, potentially allowing a precious extra time to bolster fuel inventories.

This is all good news, but real dangers still lie ahead.

Russia may have shut down the Nord Stream pipeline, but the country is still supplying significant volumes of natural gas to Europe via Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin is escalating the military campaign, and has the capacity to inflict further economic pain on the continent if he chooses.

As winter takes hold across the northern hemisphere, competition will intensify for the LNG that helped