Winter is coming: European natural gas prices continue to rise as EU grapples with energy crisis

The price of natural gas in Europe surpassed $900 per thousand cubic meters on Wednesday, for the first time since late October, according to data released by the ICE exchange.

The price of December futures on the TTF hub in the Netherlands rose to more than $940 per thousand cubic meters, which constitutes a 16% daily increase.

On Monday, the price of gas in Europe jumped by 11% after reports that Russian supplies via the Yamal-Europe pipeline reversed course from Germany and ended up in Poland over the weekend. However, Poland often buys reverse gas supplies from Germany in order to avoid the appearance of buying gas directly from Russia.

Meanwhile, Ukraine may soon increase firewood exports to the EU to help the bloc deal with energy shortages ahead of winter amid soaring gas prices. According to Ukraine’s Analysis and Strategy Center, the EU is considering firewood as an energy product.

“Firewood is, undoubtedly, an interesting commodity for exports, especially for the European Union’s market. In this heating season, they fall short by 70 billion cubic meters to cover their needs until the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline gets up and running,” the head of Ukraine’s Analysis and Strategy Center, Igor Chalenko, told a press conference last week.

European customers are waiting for the launch of Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which connects the gas fields in Siberia to Western Europe. The construction of the pipeline was completed in September, and it is now awaiting approval from EU regulators.

However, according to Bloomberg, the process of obtaining permission from the German regulators to operate the Nord Stream 2 pipeline could be delayed until May.

As the agency reported on Wednesday, according to German and European legal norms, the authorities are entitled to consider the issue until May 2022.

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