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Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

economist.com

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Re: Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

#161

Post by pasquinelli »

bheadmaster wrote: post #37
birracerveza wrote: post #35

I'm surprised I haven't come across conspiracy theories that use this as confirmation that "they" control the weather...

I'll admit it has passed my mind several times. I never said it out loud (until now), but the coincidence that the very year EU loses its main gas supply we get sunny winter without snow at all... I know it's probably a coincidence, but my mind doesn't like coincidences. There's always this "what if" voice inside my head.

the american pacific northwest had a summer that ran into mid-october, so the warmer than usual weather is not just in europe.

Re: Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

#162

Post by vkou »

reitanqild wrote: post #140
Workaccount2 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia would be insane (more than they already are) to attack that. It has nothing to do with Ukraine and would likely be considered an attack on a NATO ally. No benefit and lots to lose.

(Disclaimer up front: I don't know who cut NS1 and NS2, my bet is on russia, but I can see more than one alternative.) Which would explain the attacks on their own gas pipeline NS1 and NS2: - they are dumb and reckless enough to do that (they weren't used anyway, +plausible deniability) - it signals to NATO the idea that russia can destroy critical infrastructure without actually getting caught for an attack on criti…

The cost of betting wrong when you attack your own infrastructure is measured in rubles.

The cost of being wrong when you attack NATO infrastructure is measured in war, conventional or nuclear.

That's why Russia attacked Ukraine, but only postures and blusters when it comes to NATO.

There are red lines that you can't cross, and open conflict with a nuclear adversary is one of the latter.

Re: Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

#163

Post by selimthegrim »

photochemsyn wrote: post #82
kstenerud wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One major theme in the ongoing US-Russia conflict over the past decade-plus (dating back to at least 2008) is a fight over who gets to sell oil and gas to Europe. No, it wasn't. America wasn't pushing to sell to Europe, and Europe was becoming more and more reliant on Russian and Asian gas. The shift to American gas (and every other country they can get it from) happened after Russia invaded Ukraine and then shut o…

My view is that the split with Putin really started in late 2003, when Putin rejected an Exxon offer to take a controlling stake in Russian oil via the purchase of Yukos, and then jailed Khodorkosky (who was close to various USA interests) on tax evasion charges. Prior to that, Putin got a lot of favorable mention in the US press, he visited GW Bush in Texas, was an ally in the 'war on Terror' etc. If Putin had taken…

Putin canned the one defense minister (Serdyukov) who was trying to do something about reconstruction

Re: Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

#164

Post by moffkalast »

TheLoafOfBread wrote: post #99
pydry wrote: post #31

Mild autumn weather [ and not enough storage capacity to take advantage ] has sent European gas prices plummeting. 90% full in the UK means about a week's worth of gas. In Germany it's about 2.5 months.

In UK it is completely self inflicted, because they got rid of gas storage infrastructure in 2017 https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jun/20/uk-gas-stor...

Well it made sense at the time, as it was May.

Re: Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

#166

Post by sgt101 »

petercooper wrote: post #155
sgt101 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has reopened (25%) and is excluded from the economist's figures. In fact some research [1] shows that approximately 93 days of supply will be stored in the Rough gas facility at 25% (28Bcf {capacity}/313Mcf {daily}). This is inadequate (of course) and has probably not been filled yet, but should be helpful to the UK if it can be properly commissioned. [1] https://www.costadvice.co.uk/latest-news/will-the-reopeni…

And yet when the news did the rounds about Rough recently, they kept mentioning a 50% figure. For example: "Centrica has officially reopened the Rough gas storage facility, increasing the UK's storage capacity by 50%." When I saw this, I was thinking an increase of 50% on a week's worth of storage?

It looks like some of the figures in the article I cited may be very wrong.

Wikipedia says that Rough has 3.3bn cubic meters of storage, so 30Bcf total and says that equated to 9 days of supply. Looking at various other sources there seems to be a lot of confusion about what the consumption and storage figure are.

50% of 9 days is sorta like a week I guess... so that would add up.

I think that there is a lot of confusion because of the difference between peak winter demand and normal daily demand. If one is boosting the capability I guess you would quote in terms of normal daily demand. If one was trying to show that it's pointless keeping it open then maybe you would do it in terms of peak demand.

Re: Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

#167

Post by whatwherewhy »

_glass wrote: post #158
krobbn wrote: post #130

"Gas costs €35 per mwh for delivery today, but €110 for a guaranteed shipment in December and €142 for one in February, once heaters turn on." The market is in contago, if you can find a way to store the gas you can make money buying today and delivering in Dec/Jan/Feb. You could even take delivery in December if you can find storage and sell in Feb and lock in a spread of $32 today. This is the reason you're seeing…

Or you can use a financial instrument futures. I never bought futures, just learned about it in university. But there you agree to a future price, so akin to storing it.

Future is a contract with delivery in the future - exactly what this comment is taking about. The future markets for Dec/Jan/Feb have already priced in the storage problem many months ago, you can't obtain them for today's low price.

Re: Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

#168

Post by dragonwriter »

photochemsyn wrote: post #82
kstenerud wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One major theme in the ongoing US-Russia conflict over the past decade-plus (dating back to at least 2008) is a fight over who gets to sell oil and gas to Europe. No, it wasn't. America wasn't pushing to sell to Europe, and Europe was becoming more and more reliant on Russian and Asian gas. The shift to American gas (and every other country they can get it from) happened after Russia invaded Ukraine and then shut o…

My view is that the split with Putin really started in late 2003, when Putin rejected an Exxon offer to take a controlling stake in Russian oil via the purchase of Yukos, and then jailed Khodorkosky (who was close to various USA interests) on tax evasion charges. Prior to that, Putin got a lot of favorable mention in the US press, he visited GW Bush in Texas, was an ally in the 'war on Terror' etc. If Putin had taken…

> My view is that the split with Putin really started in late 2003

It started with (or maybe earlier than, but crystallized with) the NATO-Yugoslav war in 1999 (and this was widely and fairly specifically noted at the time.) Certain factions of the American political establishment may have been in denial about that rift until 2003, though.

Re: Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

#169

Post by whatshisface »

_glass wrote: post #158
krobbn wrote: post #130

"Gas costs €35 per mwh for delivery today, but €110 for a guaranteed shipment in December and €142 for one in February, once heaters turn on." The market is in contago, if you can find a way to store the gas you can make money buying today and delivering in Dec/Jan/Feb. You could even take delivery in December if you can find storage and sell in Feb and lock in a spread of $32 today. This is the reason you're seeing…

Or you can use a financial instrument futures. I never bought futures, just learned about it in university. But there you agree to a future price, so akin to storing it.

If everyone agrees that the price will go up but nobody can buy and store it, the futures price will actually be higher than today's price.

Re: Mild autumn weather has sent European gas prices plummeting

#170

Post by snapcaster »

reitanqild wrote: post #140
Workaccount2 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia would be insane (more than they already are) to attack that. It has nothing to do with Ukraine and would likely be considered an attack on a NATO ally. No benefit and lots to lose.

(Disclaimer up front: I don't know who cut NS1 and NS2, my bet is on russia, but I can see more than one alternative.) Which would explain the attacks on their own gas pipeline NS1 and NS2: - they are dumb and reckless enough to do that (they weren't used anyway, +plausible deniability) - it signals to NATO the idea that russia can destroy critical infrastructure without actually getting caught for an attack on criti…

Why would it have been Russia? Obviously we don't know who did, but my thoughts were that Russia would want that pipeline to be available as a bargaining chip to get the rest of Europe to pressure Ukraine to concede. How does blowing it up benefit them?
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