In the aftermath of the announcement made by the Russian giant Gazprom to drastically reduce exports to the EU via the Nord Stream gas pipeline, gas prices continued to soar on Tuesday, leading to an explosion in oil prices.
This Tuesday morning, the price of European gas reached a record level comparable to that of last March, when the war in Ukraine began. In its wake, the price of a barrel of oil also jumped today, approaching its record level reached in 2008. This rise in energy prices follows Gazprom’s announcement on Monday to reduce from 40 to 20% of its European gas exports via the Nord Stream gas pipeline from this Wednesday. To justify this reduction of 33 million cubic meters per day, Gazprom assured that a gas pipeline turbine required “maintenance”.
Consequence: from 11:15 a.m. on Tuesday, the Dutch TTF, the benchmark for natural gas in Europe, moved to 192.00 euros per megawatt hour (MWh), its highest level since the start of the Russian invasion (launched on February 24). ). This increase in gas prices also had an effect on the increase in oil prices. On Tuesday, the barrel of Brent from the North Sea for delivery in September took 1.45%, to 106.67 dollars and that of American West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for delivery climbed 1.73%, to 98.37 dollars
In an attempt to limit this growing inflation for several months, the government adopted a gas price freeze in the fall of 2021. Initially scheduled until June 2022, this measure will be maintained by the executive, who has undertaken to maintain “the gas price freeze for individuals in all circumstances”.
AN EU PLAN TO REDUCE ITS GAS CONSUMPTION
Representing up to 40% of Russia’s gas exports last year, the European Union announced on Tuesday a plan to reduce gas consumption in order to reduce its energy dependence on Moscow.
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