Europe Faces Blackouts in Winter as Gas Shortages Persist, Trafigura CEO Says

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Europe is still low on natural gas and risks rolling power outages this winter if cold weather lingers, the chief executive of Trafigura Group, one of the world's leading energy traders, said on Tuesday.

"We haven’t got enough gas at the moment quite frankly. We’re not storing for the winter period. So hence there is a real concern that… if we have a cold winter that we could have rolling blackouts in Europe," Jeremy Weir was quoted by the Financial Times as saying.

There are fears that natural gas shortages will persist until next spring. Europe depends on gas for electricity and heating after moving to cut carbon-fueled electricity production.

Weir told the FT Commodities Asia Summit that the oil market was also "very tight." He said lack of investment in new oil projects means prices were likely to reach into the triple digits. FT said the benchmark Brent crude was trading at $81 per barrel on Monday.