Hopes of a less tight supply situation caused the price of European natural gas to fall somewhat on Monday. In the morning, the price of the futures contract TTF for Dutch natural gas temporarily fell to 286 euros per megawatt hour. In the morning the price was 300 euros. On Friday, the TTF contract was still trading at around 340 euros.
The main reason for the price reductions at the beginning of the week is likely to be vague signs of relaxation in the supply situation. Despite significantly reduced delivery volumes from Russia, the filling level of the German gas storage facilities is approaching the 85 percent mark, which should actually not be reached until the beginning of October. As emerged on Monday from data from European gas storage operators, a filling level of 82.74 percent was expected for last Saturday. “The reservoirs are filling up faster than specified,” Economics Minister Robert Habeck told the “Spiegel”.
Despite this, the price of natural gas has risen sharply in recent months. At the end of last year, natural gas cost about a third of what it is now. The background to this is the significantly reduced delivery volumes from Russia. Europe, and Germany in particular, is highly dependent on Russian natural gas. Since the Ukraine war, great efforts have been made to significantly reduce dependency.
An internal note from the Federal Ministry of Economics shows that German gas storage facilities are currently filling up faster than planned. Less gas from Russia, but more from Norway and the Netherlands and soon from France. On Friday the fill level was 82.2 percent.
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