$1,000 - yes, you heard it right. Those were the figures for European natural gas prices, which have approached per thousand cubic metres after experiencing a sharp weekly increase. Now that I have your attention, the precise figure was $995.08, to be exact, for the sake of our sensitive economists.

This is the price per thousand cubic metres of gas in the Dutch Title Transfer Facility, the main market in Europe, registered on October 14. It is the record high since December 2022, when the latest energy crisis hit, and marks an increase by 10.67% for the week despite a decline by 0.68% for the day. In the case of a state that exported 12.7 billion cubic metres of gas in the first six months of the year, most of it to Europe, one might be inclined to see the number as an opportunity. But there is more to it.

EU storage stands at roughly 73% full, according to The Wall Street Journal, against a five-year average of 89%. Germany, the bloc's largest consumer, is closer to 60%. Brussels has quietly relaxed its mandatory winter filling target from 90% to 80%, an admission of how tight the autumn has been.

Well, the cause, honestly, lies mostly beyond Europe's borders. With the Strait of Hormuz blocked by the war involving Iran and following an attack by Iran that damaged Qatar’s Ras Laffan LNG facility, there has been very little output of LNG coming out of the Persian Gulf region. “We believe the market will have to come to terms with the fact that going into most of the Northern Hemisphere winter, we will see very limited LNG supply from the Persian Gulf,” noted analysts at ING. It appears that LNG prices in North........

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