Gas prices in Europe have collapsed. Mikhail Krutikhin is sure that these are the consequences of blackmail from Gazprom

Gas prices in Europe collapsed amid Gazprom’s announcement of its readiness to begin deliveries via Nord Stream 2 by the end of 2021. About it testify data from the London stock exchange ICE.

The price of a cubic meter of fuel under a futures contract with delivery in September hovers around $ 510. Thus, the decline compared to the previous session’s close is 12%.

“On the European gas market, the so-called algorithms have worked on messages (and it does not matter whether they are true or not) that there will be more gas, that the alleged deficit for the winter season will be repaid as a result of the fact that Gazprom will use Nord Stream. 2, ”Mikhail Krutikhin, Rusenergy partner, explained to The Insider. “These messages turned out to be false, but the algorithms have already worked, they gave an order to buy futures contracts and, under the influence of such emotions, prices rolled down. In fact, nothing has changed – whether there is Nord Stream 2 or not, in the gas pipelines that go from Russia to Europe, there is one and a half times more gas than Europe needs, but since we have one supplier, it will switch gas flows from the Ukrainian transit to the “Nord Stream 2”. In any case, the supplier wants to do this and is already demonstrating it to Europe.

Before that, the situation developed in such a way that Gazprom actually blackmailed Europe – it cut off a significant part of the pumping along the Belarus-Poland route to Germany, explaining that there was an accident in Urengoy and a fire at a gas processing plant. This did not correspond to reality, because all these volumes were completely replaced by gas from the Yamal Peninsula from the Bovanenkovo ​​field. The blackmail took place, and Gazprom announced that it would lease Ukrainian capacities to a very small extent to pump gas towards Europe. This also influenced prices and pushed them up. For some time, Gazprom’s blackmail had the desired effect, ”the expert noted.

Earlier, Gazprom announced that it was ready to supply 5.6 billion cubic meters of gas via Nord Stream 2 by the end of 2021.