Russia’s invasion into Ukraine is driving up the cost of natural gas worldwide, analysts noted on Thursday as Moscow’s military incursion could threaten the flow of supplies into Europe.
While Russian President Vladimir Putin promised earlier this week that he wouldn’t disrupt natural gas supplies to Europe, the invasion early Thursday has raised news fears. And Ukraine’s gas-transport infrastructure is vital to European gas supplies.
Natural gas futures rose Thursday by more than 5% — to a three-week high of $4.9 per million in British thermal units, according to the website Trading Economics. While new economic sanctions could hurt Russia by leaving its exports out of the global market, supplies of gas traditionally goes to where demand is the highest during the winter months.
PJSC Gazprom is a Russian majority state-owned multinational energy corporation that has a monopoly on natural gas from Russia. File Photo by Igor Golovniov/Shutterstock/UPI
Natural gas, heating oil, gasoline and Brent crude had all showed increases of at least 6% by early Thursday, Trading Economics said.
About 40% of Europe’s natural gas supplies come from Russia, which has only increased over the past 20 years as those countries transitioned away from coal and nuclear power.
“While Western governments probably will exempt energy transactions from sanctions, the blizzard of new restrictions will force many traders to be exceedingly cautious in handling Russian barrels,” political risk consultancy Eurasia Group said, according to CNBC.
“Gas transiting Ukraine will likely be disrupted, affecting supplies to several central and eastern European countries, and raising gas prices in Europe.”
Germany said this week that it was halting certification of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which runs from Russia to Germany, over the crisis in Ukraine. Australia, Britain, Canada, the European Union, Japan and the United States have all announced a string of sanctions against Moscow.
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vladimir stalin.
Biden is doing everything except the one thing that would stop Putin cold and unite gas starved Europe against him. Guarantee Europe an ample supply of American natural gas and oil. Instead, Biden sits on his rump doing nothing but allowing the price of oil to triple from when he came into office, enriching Russia with enough wealth to invade Ukraine and OTHERS with bullets that are killing East Europeans, paid for in American oil dollars that should never gone to Russia but stayed here in America and used to defend eastern Europe, not to mention the good old USA. WHAT THE HELL IS HE WAITING FOR<<<OPEN THE PIPELINES AND DRILL, DRILL, DRILL,
Europe's epitaph will be "We died by the millions, but our air was clean of carbon,,,,but filled with Soviet made nuclear fallout. Is there no end to Biden's American insanity and incompetence???? If this is leadership you can count me and half the world out of his followership. Joe and Joe alone got us into this mess, and has not the capacity to get us out. Thank the corrupt mainstream media for not keeping his party honest, and letting us know what a dishonest incompetent fraud he was, BEFORE the election, and left this nation one heartbeat away from Kamala, where America's epitaph will be, "We died with our boots on, but with our first Woman President of color."
WELL he did say he would KILL AMERICAN Gas, coal and oil….
I have NO PITY what so bloody ever for Europe.. THEY STUFFED their Middle fingers up at US, and said “WE are going with Oil/gas from Russia, not you”. SO NOW they’ve made their bed, they can LIE in it!
The sanctions will only last for a few weeks and the Europeans will get tired of paying outrageous prices for energy and they’ll go back to buying Russian energy. This is because some stupid son of a female dog escapee from a Delaware nursing home has left no other choice for Europe and even us.
That’s assuming europe, even FOLLOWS those sanctions..
IIRC EVEN WITH all the sanctions we put on syria, iran/iraq etc, both germany and france, STILL DID TRADES WITH THEM, in full opposition TO the sanctions.. BUT NOT a damn thing, happened because of it..