Natural gas price reached the record level of 200 euro/MWh much faster than the forecasts showed, said the president of the Intelligent Energy Association, Dumitru Chisăliță.
“We warned a month ago that ‘the price of natural gas in the winter will reach the highest values in the history of the use of natural gas. The large industrial consumers will shut down by themselves, without being rationalized’… Unfortunately, winter did not come, but against the background of the increase in gas demand for storage, the price jumped over 200 euro/MWh on the Dutch stock market,” said Dumitru Chisăliță.
In the last year, the price of natural gas traded on the stock exchange in the Netherlands has increased about 9 times, and traders’ expectations are for a price increase for the winter of 2022/2023.
“Statistically, annually, the price of natural gas starts to rise starting in August, when the gas purchase contracts for the winter/next year are concluded. Thus, we must expect that gas prices will rise during this period and reach values that have not existed before in the history of gas transactions. But the most important problem of the coming winter is the actual existence of gas, and thus we will witness situations where some consumers/countries will be determined to offer “anything” for gas, just to have it. A situation that will bring European companies and countries in a position to benefit from some huge gains this winter through the policies and programs they will undertake. Unfortunately, Romania, even if it is the second gas producer in the EU, will not be found in the list of these countries,” added Dumitru Chisăliță.
