Gas prices in Europe skyrocket 10% as Russia refuses to turn on taps



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As the cat-and-mouse game continues on Russian gas to Europe, Russian Gazprom refused to allow more gas to Europe via Ukraine for October, pushing prices up 10% on Monday.

Russia’s decision to keep flows to Europe to a minimum means the continent cannot stockpile until the winter months.

According to Bloomberg, European gas storage is only 72 percent capacity–a point to which they have been reduced at this time of year for over a decade.

Gazprom has only reserved about a third of the gas transit capacity of the Yamal-Europe pipeline offered to it for October, according to Reuters, citing Interfax. At the same time, Gazprom did not use any additional transit capacity through Ukraine.

At Gazprom’s Sokhranovka and Sudzha natural gas network points, both on the Russian-Ukrainian border, the gas giant has not reserved any of the 9.8 million cubic meters per day of capacity offered.

The European benchmark for natural gas prices, the Dutch hub TTF, saw its prices rise by more than 10% on Monday.

October futures were up over 11% at 10:44 a.m.CT. November futures rose more than 14% and December futures peaked almost 15%.

Source: CME Group

The lack of reservations “will likely cause a significant year-over-year drop in Russian supplies this winter,” James Waddell, head of European gas at Energy Aspects in London, told Bloomberg on Monday.

European legislators are now asking the European Commission to investigate potential manipulations by Gazrpom, which insists it fully respects existing contracts.

Gazprom blame Europe for the crisis, citing its withdrawal of 66 billion cubic meters of gas from storage during the period 2020-21, which the Russian gas giant said caused the three-week delay in new gas supplies.

By Julianne Geiger for OilUSD

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