January future contracts for natural gas increased 23% on Dec. 21, to €180/ MWh on the Amsterdam exchange, only to drop to €165 on Dec. 22 in the evening. European media claim that the Russian state company Gazprom is cutting gas delivery through the Yamal pipeline that goes through Belarus and Poland, as the cause of the jump. TASS confirmed that “Gazprom again did not book capacities for the transit of natural gas through Poland via the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline for Dec. 21. As a result, on the morning of Dec. 21, the physical gas flow through the pipeline went in the reverse direction from Germany to Poland.”
However, Gazprom itself noted that the company supplies gas to Europe in accordance with the requests of consumers in accordance with the existing contracts. In other words, Western Europe had requested less gas that day. Additionally, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied Western press reports that Gazprom’s cut in deliveries to Europe via the Yamal pipeline had anything to do with the Nord Stream 2 negotiations, according to RT. “There is no connection here,” Peskov clarified.
Electricity prices suddenly zoomed to €620/MWh after 5 p.m. in Germany yesterday, up from €298 at 1 p.m. Focus magazine put this in connection with Gazprom and France’s nuclear power problems but did not look at the obvious: the price spike occurred after sunset, in correspondence with peak demand and zero supply from solar panels throughout Europe, on the first full day of winter.
