Status: 01/16/2023 2:33 p.m
Federal Economics Minister Habeck is confident that the price of natural gas will be cheaper again next winter. The prices are already far from their highs.
Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck was optimistic about the natural gas supply and the prices in the coming winter: “For the year 2023 and the winter of 23/24, we have more than justified hope that we will also have the storage facilities full at the beginning of the winter,” said of the Green politicians today at an energy conference in Berlin. Then the supply will be pretty safe “and also at reasonable prices,” he said.
In terms of price, it will make an “insane difference” whether the storage tanks are then 50 percent or 75 percent full, stresses Habeck. The fuller the reservoirs are in spring, the easier it will be to fill them up completely again by the coming winter.
Habeck reminded that in spring 2022 it was still expected that industrial companies would be shut down and there would be a gas shortage. This was also prevented with the construction of liquid gas terminals. “We looked into the abyss that year and we are in the process of building a bridge across this abyss.”
“Gas shortage increasingly unlikely”
According to the Federal Network Agency’s current management report, the storage is currently 90.47 percent full, but it is said that most of it is being used up. The situation is less tense than at the beginning of winter, and a gas shortage this winter is becoming increasingly unlikely.
In the first calendar week of this year, gas consumption was 38 percent below the average consumption for the years 2018 to 2021 due to the mild temperatures. Since the forecast temperature for this week of minus 0.3 degrees Celsius is in the tense range, additional consumption can now be expected, writes the Federal Network Agency.
Gas price falls sharply
The gas price is currently falling. At the beginning of the year, the price of the reference futures contract TTF on the energy exchange in the Netherlands had already slipped below the 70 euro mark.
The price decline is currently continuing; in the meantime, the price has already fallen below the 60 euro mark. Currently, only slightly less than 58 euros are paid on the exchange for this contract for deliveries in February. In the past five days alone, the price has fallen by more than 20 percent due to the mild winter so far.
However, the recent easing should not hide the fact that prices are still very high by historical standards. Between January 2016 and spring 2021, the TTF price ranged between around five and 25 euros per megawatt hour. However, the prices had risen to more than 340 euros over the past year.