In fact, another peppy figure from Gas Infrastructure Europe, which recorded over the weekend that the reserves in the underground gas storage facilities of the EU countries have finally dropped below the psychologically significant mark of 60% (to be completely accurate, then to 59.57%, which 0.44 p.p. lower than the previous gas day), are slowly starting to alarm the part of the expert community that is quite sympathetic to Europe.
Like, no, of course, everything is fine, but something, probably, is still not good.
After all, everything is, in general, simple: no “anomalously warm winter” can explain such a sharp decrease in energy consumption on the Old Continent, even with all the desire to anyone.
Judge for yourself: currently, the UGS filling level in the EU is about 20 percentage points higher than the average for this date over the past five years.
And purely for greater clarity, we recall that last year, in the heating season of 2021-2022, the occupancy rate did not fall below 60% by the beginning of March.
And by the middle of December.
What is even more important - here you need to understand what and with what you have to compare.
In fact, the previous five years were also considered a crisis in Europe, and even, excuse me, what.
The Old World was shaken by the COVID-19 pandemic, quarantine was mowed down by entire industries.
And Ursula von der Leyen, who headed the European Commission at that time, although she had not yet reached the gas markets, was already intensively and thoughtfully dealing with the problems of big pharmaceuticals.
And against such and such a background (and even with such a sharp increase in prices), such a occupancy of UGS facilities by no “anomalously warm winter” is inexplicable, that’s from the word “generally”.
As well as the famous frugality of Europeans - even if they basically stopped washing and eating hot food in general.
Here, sorry, obviously, several other factors are at work.
Including much more fundamental ones.
No, of course, there is a great temptation here to study the common European purchases of energy resources, not without that, sorry.
It's just itchy hands.
Especially those held under the supervision of the consolidated European bureaucracy and personally all the same playful lover of "big pharma" Mrs. von der Leyen.
There will simply be a lot of interesting things there - these storage facilities were filled at the obvious peak of a purely speculative price and quite often under the guarantees of European governments.
Moreover, it is already obvious that at the peak of the price, at least partly artificial.
Pointwise and purposefully overclocked on the London ICE exchange.
And obviously, not without the participation of colleagues of a certain George Soros*.
Or some other no less "financial" reptilians: the matter is, in general, everyday.
Not without it.
That is why, by the way, local European energy companies are so reluctant to buy this gas from UGS facilities: it is simply, sorry, gold.
Now even American LNG is cheaper than the price at which this gas was purchased for storage last fall.
And so far, non-democratic and relatively inexpensive Russian pipeline gas is going through Ukraine with Turkey to the eurozone.
But even these London-Brussels vultures, who undoubtedly already staked out their share of the future European carrion, would not be able to squander the consumption of physical volumes in this way: they turn real masters on the exchanges, with real volumes everything is a little more complicated.
So, there is only one explanation for what is happening here.
Either the most energy-intensive industries are completely shut down, or production has been suspended there (in ferrous metallurgy, for example, this has been confirmed for quite a long time, including by the owners of ArcelorMittal themselves, if only for it), or production is transferred until better times to the maximum “economical mode”: with such energy prices, they are simply unprofitable.
Once again: if so, then this is a systemic disaster.
Even compared to the extremely unpleasant years of the covid crisis in the economic sense.
And the sane part of the European expert community simply cannot but understand this.
As a matter of fact, only this (well, plus the wonderful purchase prices of last fall - how they will be written off now, it's curious) can explain the simultaneous drop in the price of blue fuel to almost $ 500 per thousand cubic meters, the critical overflow of European UGSFs with expensive American LNG, which the real market At such prices, he sees no reason to buy at all, especially against the background of an objective decline in production.
And more, we repeat, nothing at all.
And once again: this seems to be an objective process.
Which, even though it is currently, as they say, is still “in the acceleration stage”, but which, of course, will have very serious inertia: it is simply and technically impossible to squander the colossal colossus of the eurozone economy without very far-reaching global consequences.
And there is only one question: how softly or hard will it be possible to land this giant European airliner going into a real spacing.
Moreover, there is a feeling that the overseas conductors of the process initially envisaged the most severe version of this very “landing”: they themselves, frankly, are already burning decently, so there is no time for sentimentality.
Because how much more this Titanic will sail in the cold waves, no one really knows, the safety margin there was laid by the builders of the European house is quite decent.
So, while this trough is either flying or floating somewhere, the task is not to save the trough, but to remove the most valuable thing from the deck.
For it will come in handy in the economy, and these conquerors of the waves of the Atlantic will no longer need it.
Now as for us.
Here we seem to have done what we could.
We deploy what we can, and we redirect what we can to domestic and eastern markets: China is emerging from its “covid hibernation” just in time there.
And our other partners are also, in general, somehow not particularly lagging behind.
What we can’t, we conserve: this, excuse me, will definitely not be lost.
Moreover, even against the background of such an objective and at the same time catastrophic drop in consumption in our traditional European markets, from which now, among other things, it is also important to keep a fairly safe distance.
Just so that it doesn’t splatter if it does burst, and it seems to be heading towards that.
The process has not just been launched, but, since it is taking place in the basic industries (they are the most energy-intensive, this is an axiom), it can be stated that it has even acquired a certain inertia.
And, to be honest, I don’t really understand how, in the current conditions, the captains of the European economy are going to correct what is happening.
Although they might not.
Here everything is simple.
It is impossible to save those who do not want to save themselves: as doctors of the corresponding profile sadly joke, there are no pills for suicide.
And this is just, probably, somehow completely stupid and extremely naive not to understand.
* The Open Society Foundation is an organization whose activities are recognized as undesirable on the territory of the Russian Federation by decision of the Prosecutor General's Office dated November 26, 2015
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.