The contrast could hardly be greater.

Citizens in Germany are considering whether they will soon have to stand in the dark bathroom after a cold shower.

The first authorities are warning that older people should not stop heating completely to save money, because it could then be dangerous for their health.

And married couples are arguing whether the heating should at least be turned up a little when watching TV in the evening - or whether watching "Tatort" in winter jackets will soon be the order of the day.

In any case, everyone is trembling before the high gas prices.

Christian Siedenbiedel

Editor in Business.

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And what about the gas price?

It goes down and down and at times even turns negative.

On Monday, the wholesale price TTF for natural gas for delivery in one hour temporarily reached minus 15.78 euros per megawatt hour.

By Wednesday it had regained some gain but remained low.

The first analysts are already complaining that the political gas price cap could soon become an official minimum price.

Well stocked camps and mild weather

The "natural gas paradox" is also being followed with a great deal of attention on the financial markets.

"This is an interesting development," says Cyrus de la Rubia, commodity specialist at Hamburg Commercial Bank.

And Commerzbank has set up its own gas price monitor, which it uses to monitor and analyze the development of storage levels and imports and exports.

The key question: Are negative gas prices a whim of commodity futures markets, just as oil prices went negative at times during the pandemic when switching from one futures contract to another was pending and in some places in America oil storage facilities were short-term exhausted?

Or is there something happening in the supply of natural gas that should change the view on this topic for the winter?

Technically, negative commodity prices occur when contracts mature but storage capacity is exhausted, explains Frank Schallenberger, analyst at Bank LBBW.

But it's about more.

"There were only negative gas prices for very short-term transactions, for example for delivery in the next hour," says Jörg Krämer, Chief Economist at Commerzbank.

Even with contracts for delivery on the following day, there have recently been no negative prices: "Nevertheless, gas prices have fallen significantly across all contracts since late summer." The gas price for delivery has halved in one year compared to the end of August.

Gas prices have also fallen across the board in America, says Krämer: "This relaxation is due to the well-stocked storage facilities - and the mild weather so far."

Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) is of course not interested in the low gas price acting as a signal – and industrial companies and households consuming more again.

He therefore already signaled: no all-clear.

"The fall in natural gas prices on the wholesale exchanges reflects that gas is currently available in sufficient quantities as of the end of October," said Klaus Müller, President of the Federal Network Agency, to the FAZ. "But that can change if it gets colder and demand increases."

However, Commerzbank calculates that Germany's net imports of natural gas have hardly fallen despite the loss of Russian supplies.

Germany no longer gets gas from Russia, but for example from Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands and also some from France, according to the Federal Network Agency.

Germany benefits from the good infrastructure in these countries for liquid gas LNG.

The gas arrives there by ship from countries such as the United States and the Middle East.

The risk: If it gets colder, Germany may not be able to import as much gas from Belgium and the Netherlands because these countries will then consume it themselves.

As data from previous heating periods show, private consumption depends heavily on the weather everywhere, possibly more than on the price.

Bad luck for consumers: Those who heat with gas currently benefit little from the low gas prices.

At least the prices for existing customers in the basic service continued to rise, reports the Internet portal Verivox: "We recorded 306 price increases from local gas suppliers for November, December and January - by around 49 percent." For a family with an average annual gas consumption of 20,000 kilowatt hours the additional costs of around 1100 euros per year.

The situation is different with the new customer prices.

“We are currently observing a price drop here,” says Lundquist Neubauer from Verivox: “While the average price for the gas tariffs brokered by Verivox at the beginning of September was almost 40 cents per kilowatt hour, it is currently only 22.2 cents.”