European gas prices surged more than 7% on Monday, with the price of January futures on the TTF hub in the Netherlands hitting $1,732 per 1,000 cubic meters, or €148.87 per megawatt hour in household terms.
In early October gas prices in Europe reached a record $2,000 per 1,000 cubic meters, which constituted an almost 400% rise since the start of the year.
Energy prices in Europe continue to spike as Germany keeps postponing the launch of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that was laid to deliver additional supplies of Russian natural gas to the continent.
The delay in approving the pipeline is not political, new German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said last week. Its construction faced strong opposition from the US, Poland, and Ukraine.
The amount of gas in Germany’s emergency reserves has been decreasing, dropping to a “historically low level” of below 60% last week for the first time in years, according to the German association of underground gas storage operators INES.
