The renewed stop of Russian gas supplies through the important pipeline Nord Stream 1 triggers a rally in the gas price. The European future rises by a good 30 percent to 272 euros per megawatt hour and is heading back towards the most recent record high.
The European gas price shoots up sharply at the start of trading. On Friday it had fallen by more than 12 percent because Gazprom announced that it would resume deliveries on Saturday morning as planned. When the Russian gas company said later on Friday that delivery by Nord Stream 1 would be stopped until further notice due to a leak that had been discovered, gas trading had already ended.
The European future has now shot up by a good 30 percent to EUR 272 per megawatt hour and is heading back towards the most recent record high. On August 26, speculation about a delivery stop from Russia had even pushed it briefly to almost $350.
The renewed gas price explosion frightens stock investors. At the opening, the Dax fell by 1.7 percent to 12,823 points. A quick solution to the energy crisis is not in sight, warned Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at brokerage firm AvaTrade. Europe is therefore threatened with economic disaster. The gas supplier Uniper, which was already in trouble, went down again. Its shares fell a good ten percent. Since the company had to stock up on natural gas from other sources in the short term, the losses at the current prices added up to 100 million euros per day, the analysts at Credit Suisse calculated.
Gazprom has indefinitely suspended gas supplies to Germany through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline. The delivery stop, which began on Wednesday, was initially justified with regular maintenance work on a compressor station. The group did not provide any information on the duration of the delivery stop.
