The outbreak continues.
The gas markets in Europe are racing this Wednesday, the continental and British references breaking new records due to strong demand as winter approaches, especially in Asia, but also to constrained supply and stocks low all over the world.
The European benchmark market, the Dutch Title Transfer Facility (TTF), climbed around midday in France by 25.14% to 145.19 euros per megawatt hour (MWh) when the price of British gas for delivery next month gained 25.13% to 367.78 pence per therm (a unit of quantity of heat).
To read alsoSpark in the prices of the raw materials: "I have never seen such a tension and such a rise"
"The current surge in energy prices in Europe is truly unique", reacted analysts at Societe Generale, "never before have energy prices risen so high and so quickly".
Asked by AFP, Commerzbank analyst Carsten Fritsch sees this very sharp acceleration in prices as a "movement of panic and fear" in the face of low stocks as winter approaches in the northern hemisphere.
An explosion in prices which has now been reflected for several weeks on consumers' bills.
Thus, after a previous increase of nearly 9% in September, regulated gas prices once again increased by 12.6% on October 1… An outbreak which worries the government and which has forced Prime Minister Jean Castex to announce last week a "tariff shield" to compensate for these successive increases.
Russia "has nothing to do" with this crisis
Russia, sometimes accused of being at the origin of this galloping gas inflation, affirms this Wednesday that it "has nothing to do" with this crisis.
"We insist on the fact that Russia does not and cannot have any role in what is happening on the gas market in Europe," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in his press conference daily telephone.
"Russia has fulfilled, is fulfilling and will continue to fulfill in the most responsible manner all of its obligations under existing contracts," he added, listing the economic recovery, low gas stocks and declining production. wind energy in Europe as a factor in the price increase.
PODCAST.
Gas, electricity, fuels… Why the bill is exploding
More generally, between a rapid post-Covid-19 economic recovery combined with an increase in demand as well as the consequences of global warming, it is the prices of all energies that are soaring.
Gas, electricity and petrol have seen their prices rise sharply in recent weeks.
One more rise associated with a wider rise in commodity prices.
This generalized inflation also makes the executive fear a new episode of social discontent in France.
