​In the near future, European actors on the European market will enter into a fierce struggle for the sale of gas from warehouses, which is currently stored in very large volumes, according to the Intelligent Energy Association. Therefore, prices will fall further and reach the lowest level of four years ago. To what extent will low prices on international markets affect Romanians’ accounts? Given that prices in Romania are limited, the impact will be negligible.

Plenty of gas, ever lower prices

The positive daytime temperatures forecast for the next three months, the very large amount of gas in European storage, the high costs that will be applied to gas in storage (there are quantities that fall under the third storage tariff) will determine In the near term, a fierce competition for sales of gas stored in warehouses during the only period in which there will be high demand, according to an analysis by the Intelligent Energy Association.

These elements show that the price of natural gas in the markets should be established in the first half of 2024 at the level until 2021, accordingly there will be intervals with prices below the level of 20 EUR/MWh.

Low prices on international markets will not affect Romanians’ accounts

Analyzing natural gas production data for the last 3 years at the European level, it can be seen that in the second half of January 2024, the amount of gas in deposits is at the level of 78.58%, higher than the level of 2022 and significantly higher than the level of 2021. Given that a significant portion of these gases will remain in storage for another season, meaning they will add some costs that will make it difficult to sell them in the 2024 price perspective, it is likely the suppliers they will come with lower prices to be able to sell as much as possible gas in the next period, the Intelligent Energy Association also indicates.

Following the evolution of the price of gas traded on the TTF exchange in the Netherlands, it can be seen that over the past 15 years, with the exception of a period of 3 years (2020 – 2022), the price of natural gas has fluctuated between 16 – 25 EUR/MWh . Examining these last 15 years of trading volumes, we see that at the moments of maximum prices, trading volumes were not high. Trading volumes have almost doubled over the last period, which led to obtaining a fair price for gas.

Price ceilings block the formation of lower prices

Extrapolating trade data for the last 5 years, we can conclude that in the next 6 months, prices will stabilize at a level similar to the prices of 2019-2020.

The big question is whether changes in these quotations will lead to lower prices for Romanians’ bills? The answer is: very little, because Romania has a semi-regulated system of gas prices, which means that market trends have very little effect on the prices on Romanians’ bills, according to the Intelligent Energy Association.

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