Natural Gas Prices Hit 15-Year High as Europe Faces ‘Biggest Fear’ of Russian Pipeline Cutoff

After Gazprom announced that the flow of liquified natural gas (LNG) through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany would be cut to just 20% of its capacity, the price of natural gas surged, hitting a value not seen since 2008.

US natural gas futures jumped by 11% at one point on Tuesday, hitting $9.75 per million British thermal units (MMBtu), the highest price since July 2008, according to CNBC. In Europe, futures contracts on Tuesday jumped by 20%, and UK natural gas futures increased by 17.3%. Overall, prices are 10 times the average between 2010 and 2020, according to the Financial Times, and are up by 66% in July alone.

The precipitating event for the spike was Russian state-owned energy company Gazprom announcing on Monday that the LNG pumped through the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline would be reduced to just 33 million cubic meters per day, or 20% of its capacity. The pipeline runs under the Baltic Sea from the Russian port city of Vyborg to the German town of Lubmin, near Greifswald. Germany alone relies on Russia to provide 30% of its gas needs.

Yesterday's announcement by Gazprom, to further reduce the amount of natural gas it sends to through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, is sending U.S. natural gas futures back toward $9/MMBtu. pic.twitter.com/HsczBfPLMz

— Teri Viswanath (@TeriViswanath) July 26, 2022

An unnamed US official told CNN that Russia’s decision “was our biggest fear," since not only would Europe be thrown into crisis, but gas and electricity prices in the US are likely to rise as well.

In fact, this has been a long-stated goal of US foreign policy by both US President Joe Biden and his predecessor, Donald Trump.

Shortly after taking office in 2017, Trump began pushing Washington’s European partners to buy more American LNG, insinuating that without diversified sources of gas, Europe could be “held hostage to a single supplier of energy,” in this case Russia.

The following year, then-European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker announced the bloc would build more LNG terminals to import American gas, following a deal with Trump. However, Trump also wanted to end Russian competition by blocking the completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, a parallel line to Nord Stream 1 that would double the flow to Europe and dramatically slash energy prices there. Sanctions against the construction companies failed to halt its progress but succeeded in fanning tensions between Washington and Berlin.

Biden, however, succeeded where Trump failed: only after Russia launched its special operation in Ukraine in February 2022, which is aimed at blocking that country’s ability to serve as a NATO base from which to attack Russia, did Berlin finally suspend Nord Stream 2’s certification, even though the pipeline’s construction is finished.

Russia's recent steep cuts in natural gas flows to the EU mean this is the 1st month in history in which the EU has imported more gas via LNG from the US than via pipeline from Russia

The drop in Russian supply calls for efforts to reduce EU demand to prepare for a tough winter pic.twitter.com/YmjvRN39ND

— Fatih Birol (@fbirol) June 30, 2022

This month, the full fruits of that effort were on display: International Energy Agency (IEA) Executive Director Fatih Birol said on July 1 that “this is the 1st month in history in which the EU has imported more gas via LNG from the US than via pipeline from Russia,” and on Monday, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) revealed that the US had become the world’s largest exporter of LNG, displacing Australia and Qatar.

In both anticipation and response to Gazprom’s decision, Brussels has rushed forward a plan to slash the bloc’s gas consumption by at least 15% by the spring of 2023 in order to conserve LNG supplies and to replace two-thirds of Russian imports by the end of the year. However, the plan has skeptics, as Budapest dismissed it as “unenforceable” and Rome insists it doesn’t need to make such cuts.