Electricity and natural gas prices in Europe fall sharply after yesterday’s huge increase | Ukraine and Russia war

The price of gas for March delivery on the European benchmark Amsterdam Stock Exchange fell below $100 per megawatt-hour on Friday. Before that, natural gas became more expensive four days in a row. On Thursday alone, the price of gas rose by more than half (to 134 euros per megawatt-hour).

On Friday around 2.30pm the gas cost about 93 euros per megawatt-hour, or 30 percent less than when it closed on Thursday.

The price of electricity supply in Germany, the reference for energy, fell 26 percent on Friday afternoon at 220 euros per megawatt-hour.

Flows of Russian natural gas entering the European Union via Ukraine increased again on Friday. According to Slovakian network operator Eustream, gas supplies will rise by about a quarter on Friday. As a result, the price of natural gas fell again.

The utilities are now ordering more natural gas under long-term contracts with Russia’s state gas company Gazprom. These contracts to import gas from Russia are currently cheaper than the daily prices for gas traded in Europe. Gazprom also confirmed that gas supplies through Ukraine are “normal”. The supply of Russian gas passes through Ukraine to Slovakia, which is the main route for the introduction of natural gas into the European Union.

The European Union, among other countries, has announced severe sanctions against Russia, including on Russian banks, but nothing is known about the energy sector so far.

The United States said Thursday that it will not impose sanctions on the Russian energy sector yet, because the Americans do not yet want to disrupt a sector that Russia has a structural impact on in the global economy.

See also: Will gas prices rise more? Here’s what our financial expert Paul Dore had to say about it earlier