Energy: European natural gas price rises by around 35 percent

Russia's temporary suspension of deliveries via the important Nord Stream 1 pipeline caused the European gas price to skyrocket on Monday.

Energy: European natural gas price rises by around 35 percent

Russia's temporary suspension of deliveries via the important Nord Stream 1 pipeline caused the European gas price to skyrocket on Monday.

In the morning, the price of the TTF futures contract for Dutch natural gas jumped by around EUR 72.5 to EUR 281 per megawatt hour. That was around 35 percent more than on Friday. The TTF contract is often used as a guide to European price levels.

Supply via Nord Stream 1 temporarily suspended

The decisive factor for the jump in prices at the start of the week was that Russia is suspending its natural gas deliveries via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline until further notice. The reason given by the Gazprom group at the weekend was technical problems. However, it is assumed that Russia wants to put even more pressure on the West in the Ukraine conflict.

In contrast, natural gas prices had fallen noticeably in the past week. This was triggered by the fact that the natural gas storage facilities in Europe are being filled up faster than planned. In the previous months, however, prices had risen sharply. At the end of last year, natural gas cost less than 100 euros per megawatt hour. The dependence of Europe and Germany on Russian natural gas is high. Since the Ukraine war, great efforts have been made to reduce dependency.

Kremlin blames West for delivery freeze

On Monday, the Kremlin denied responsibility for the halt in Russian gas supplies via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, blaming the West. "We see endless attempts to somehow shift the responsibility for what is happening on ourselves, we categorically reject these attempts and insist that the collective West - in this case the EU, Canada and Great Britain - is to blame for the situation becoming the current one point has arrived," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, according to the Interfax news agency on Monday.

Peskow emphasized that this was not an "unfounded" claim. The statement is based on concrete facts about the turbines, their repair and transport, according to the Kremlin spokesman. He hopes that the last remaining turbine at the Portovaya compressor station can somehow be repaired, Peskov said.

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