Little stopping the natural gas rally | MENAFN.COM – MENAFN.COM

Little stopping the natural gas rally | MENAFN.COM – MENAFN.COM

(MENAFN - ING) Global natural gas prices have seen a remarkable rally so far this year. Prices in Europe have hit record levels, while US and Asian gas prices have also strengthened. Europe is set to enter winter with inventories well below the 5-year average, suggesting that prices will remain at elevated levels through the winter The record low natural gas prices seen in Europe last year seem like a distant memory. Prices have hit new records on almost a daily basis recently. TTF has recently broken above EUR70/MWh, which is up around 245% since the start of the year and up from the lows of a little over EUR3. 5/MWh in May last year. There are several factors which have contributed to this significant rally in prices. Firstly, the foundation for this strong move higher started before the summer. Colder than usual weather over April and May in Europe led to a late start of the injection season. Usually gas injection starts at the end of March/early April; however, this year we did not see meaningful injections until almost mid-May. Secondly, for much of the year there has been little incentive to send spot LNG cargoes into Europe, instead