Beautiful Virgin Islands

Wednesday, Oct 08, 2025

Europe’s energy prices slump. Just not on your bill.

Europe’s energy prices slump. Just not on your bill.

Natural gas prices are below what they were when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine — but it’s still too early to celebrate.

January temperatures are rising and the price of gas is falling — that's good news for Europe and bad news for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

However, those price drops are still a long way from showing up on energy bills for consumers and businesses.

Although Europe’s energy crisis is still very far from over, 2023 could hardly have started better for policymakers worried about how to keep the lights on this winter and beyond.

Exceptionally mild weather — including a record-breaking New Year’s Day in several countries ­— has further eased already falling gas demand, contributing to a drop in wholesale prices, which have now tumbled to levels not seen since before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than 10 months ago.

The unseasonable warmth combined with a prior, drastic cut to gas demand in Germany and other European economies saw month-ahead gas prices trading at €70.80 per megawatt-hour at the main European exchange, the Dutch TTF, on Tuesday.

Make no mistake, that’s still very expensive gas — about five times higher than in 2019, when European gas prices first started creeping up. And crucially in terms of European industry’s global competitiveness, the price still considerably higher than natural gas in the U.S.

Nevertheless, it’s around half the price seen as recently as October, and almost five times lower than last August’s record-setting peak. 


Consumer impact


Falls in the wholesale price of gas won’t immediately translate into lower utility bills for business and domestic consumers in Europe, currently struggling to cope with elevated costs despite support from a range of government subsidy schemes. 

Craig Lowrey, principal consultant at the U.K.-based Cornwall Insight energy research firm, said the falls in wholesale prices would not immediately or automatically lead to a corresponding fall in people’s bills. Energy firms, which supply gas to domestic and business consumers, buy up gas on the wholesale market well in advance. 

“There has to be a note of caution regarding what we see in the market, certainly given how fast prices previously went up in such a short space of time,” said Lowrey. “Yes, we have seen them come down and at this point in time there are potentially grounds for optimism. However, this is a very long and very rocky road for the energy market — and unfortunately for customers’ bills — for the coming months and years.”

But there is no question that wholesale markets are seeing a “significant relaxation” — partly due to this winter’s abnormally warm weather, according to Georg Zachmann, a senior fellow at the Bruegel think tank.

The construction site of the Uniper Liquefied Natural Gas terminal in Wilhelmshaven, Germany


New import capacity for seaborne liquefied natural gas (LNG) is also helping to ease prices. New terminals, including in the Netherlands and Germany, will have a combined annual capacity of almost 40 billion cubic meters (bcm) by the end of 2023 — a little under 10 percent of what the EU consumed in 2021.

Meanwhile, “significantly stronger” reduction of demand across the EU — which fell by 20 percent between August and November — also helped calm markets, Zachmann said.


Resolving storage


Gas storage levels are higher than historical trends and are even rising slightly, with EU reserves 83.5 percent full on average, compared to 54 percent at this time last year — with stocks more than 90 percent full in Germany, Poland, Croatia, Denmark, Spain and Portugal, according to Gas Infrastructure Europe.

Tom Marzec-Manser, head of gas analytics at the Independent Commodity Intelligence Services, said it was “unusual” to see net EU-wide storage levels rising in January.

“The real concern for the market has not just been getting through this winter but about how we refill and brace ourselves for the winter commencing October 2023. The concern was that if we're over-reliant on storage this winter, refilling next year would be particularly difficult,” Marzec-Manser said.

It is now “plausible” that the EU could get to the end of winter with storage facilities half-full, he added, but this would require continued mild weather, sustained LNG imports and continued gas conservation efforts from consumers. That would be a “very good result,” easing pressure on European countries in the so-called gas injection season, when storage needs to be filled during spring and summer.

The EU imported 134.8 bcm of LNG last year, up from 81 bcm in 2021, tweeted Miguel Gil Tertre, chief economist for the EU's Directorate General for Energy. That's helped replace the dramatic reduction in Russia pipeline gas, which used to supply 40 percent of the EU's demands and has now dropped to less than 10 percent.

Falling prices and slumping sales are bad news for Russia's Gazprom gas export monopoly. CEO Alexey Miller said this week that Gazprom's production fell by about a fifth in 2022 compared to 2021, and exports dropped by 45.5 percent.

But it’s far too soon to celebrate. A spring and summer scramble for scarce global LNG reserves is still likely, which could drive up prices again.

Gas demand in China, which has been suppressed by its zero-COVID policy, could surge as the country opens up and gets its economy moving, potentially tightening the market. However, a major uptick in COVID-19 cases in recent weeks has cast doubt on China’s economic trajectory this year.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz seems to have gotten the message, urging citizens on Saturday to double down on saving energy — a task he said would “remain important in the coming months.”

Despite falling wholesale prices, the energy emergency isn't over yet.

"Is this crisis averted? Are we out of the woods? No," Marzec-Manser said.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×