Natural Gas Prices Decline in Europe

Forex - European natural gas prices further softened, with the Dutch benchmark TTF contract trading at €46.94 per megawatt hour, down 0.8% after surpassing €50 last week. ING's Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey stated, “Now that the market has confirmed that Russia has halted pipeline flows through Ukraine, speculators who built record levels of net long positions over the past year may start to take some risks off the table.” Meanwhile, according to data from the sector group Gas Infrastructure Europe, 69.9% of EU gas storage is full. Analysts indicate that while this level is still generally comfortable, the process of replenishing these reserves during the summer injection season is expected to be more challenging than last year.