Despite the recent spell of cold weather the price of gas shows no signs of increasing. The daily ‘Het Nieuwsblad’ writes that despite the onset of winter the price of gas is not set to increase any time soon. Elindus that supplies of natural gas and electricity for to business confirms that the cold snap is having little impact on gas prices.
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Gas prices will not rise for the time being, despite the cold snap
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While this time last year sky high energy cost meant that we thought twice before turning the heating on this is much less the case this year. In early December last year the price of a magawatt hour of gas fluctuated between 130 and 140 euro. However, for some time now gas prices have been between 40 and 45 euro per megawatt hour.
Even though it has become much colder this week this has had little impact on gas prices. Matthias Detremmerie is an energy trader at Elindus. He told 'Het Nieuwsblad' that gas prices have remained stable. This is in part because there is a declining demand for gas among companies. "Last year, demand fell somewhat due to the very high price of gas. Consumers started to change their behavior and this year we are seeing lower demand from the industry."
Gas stocks
There are also plentiful stocks of gas. "Those gas stocks on which Europe relies very heavily remain at record levels" and that is an important difference compared with winter.
"Last year was more difficult because it was the first year that we were so confronted with the loss of Russian gas. We were able to maintain sufficient supplies through the import of LNG, etc. Now we see that due to the economic malaise, some industrial gas demand has disappeared."
This means we are in a better position when it comes to gas supplies than we were in last winter. The price is likely remain stable in the coming months. Matthias Detremmerie even expects that prices in December will even be slightly lower than in November.
Nevertheless, he advises us to remain thrifty when it comes to heating our homes.