The gas market continues to be turbulent.

The European price for a megawatt hour for delivery in April rose from 93 euros on Monday morning to 118.50 euros most recently.

This is well below the price of 345 euros that was due on March 7th, but still at a very high level.

Martin Hock

Editor in Business.

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One of the triggers for the increase of almost 10 percent on Wednesday is the declaration of the early warning level of the gas emergency plan by the federal government.

France is also currently preparing for possible supply disruptions in the wake of the G7's rejection of Russia's demand for gas imports to be paid for in rubles.

Timothy Ash, an analyst at the fund company Blue Bay, says Russia is trying to force Western governments to pay rubles in order to throw off the straitjacket of sanctions.

LPG is also scarce

Meanwhile, northern Europe's imports of liquefied gas, which is intended to serve as a replacement, surged back to near record levels in March.

But the market is extremely tight, says Oystein Kalleklev, CEO of the gas tanker shipping company Flex LNG.

The high price, not politics, ensures that gas flows to Europe.

Meanwhile, an unusually high number of 21 tankers are said to be lying idle off the coast of the supplier country Qatar.

Low exports from Qatar are currently contributing to the LNG shortage.

In February they were below the seasonal average.

A gas liquefaction plant is said to have been out of service for more than a month by March 20th.

Experts are puzzled as to whether lower delivery volumes from Qatar are due to technical reasons.

However, this should primarily affect customers in the Pacific region.

Gas producer Qatargas was unable to comment on the Bloomberg report.

Hardly any remedy with liquid gas

On top of that, the colder weather forecast for the coming weeks is driving up prices, while the approaching end of the heating period is still having a dampening effect.

However, since Europe has to fill its storage facilities, experts do not assume that the gas price will fall in the short term.

US liquefied gas exports have already reached their maximum capacity, say Kerstin Hottner and Michel Salden from Bank Vontobel.

In addition, there is a lack of infrastructure in Europe.

There are often not the necessary systems for the very complex conversion of liquid gas into gas, especially not in Germany.

Even if British and Dutch LNG ports were used for docking, it would still be difficult to transport the gas to Germany.

LPG will therefore not be able to remedy the situation in the next three to five years.

In addition, it is seven to ten times more expensive than conventional gas, so that it can only reduce the gas price to a limited extent.

According to the Vontobel experts, the question also arises as to whether Qatar or Saudi Arabia would have any interest in higher gas deliveries to Europe.

Because the focus on renewable energies makes supplying Asian countries more attractive from the point of view of the supplier countries.

According to circles, the Intercontinental Exchange is currently considering changes in futures trading in gas for delivery in Europe as a consequence of the price fluctuations.

The contract sizes are to drop to a fifth after some traders had to give up because they could no longer provide collateral.

The trading volume is currently at a record low, they say.