Tausi Insider

EU energy ministers meet in Brussels on Thursday to approve the latest set of emergency measures to mitigate an energy crisis, but the plans risk being eclipsed by disagreements over whether and how to cap gas prices. On the table are new draft laws to speed up permitting procedures for renewable energy sources, and to launch joint gas purchases for the 27 EU countries. Poland, Belgium, Italy and Greece threatened to block these if the package does not contain a gas price cap as well. A small but powerful camp led by Germany is opposed to a cap, however, saying that would prompt suppliers to sell elsewhere. Europex, the association of European energy exchanges, was among market participants to criticize plans for such an intervention. As temperatures drop on the continent ahead of the winter, the ministers will have another go at the matter that has divided the bloc for many months. The European Commission, the EU executive, has so far proposed applying the cap to month-ahead derivat...

Belgian Minister of Energy Tinne Van der Straeten attends an EU energy ministers meeting, in Brussels, on Nov. 24. JOHANNA GERON/Reuters On winter’s doorstep, European Union nations again failed to bridge bitter disagreements over a natural gas price cap Thursday as they struggle to effectively shield 450 million citizens from massive increases in their utility bills. An emergency meeting of energy ministers only showed how the energy crisis tied to Russia’s war in Ukraine has divided the 27-nation bloc into almost irreconcilable blocs. “The discussion was quite heated, and you all know that there are very divergent views,” said Czech Industry Minister Jozef Sikela, who chaired the meeting where ministers could not agree on when and how a price cap on gas purchases should kick in. A massive August spike in natural gas prices stunned all but the wealthiest in Europe, forcing the bloc to look for a cap to contain volatile prices that are fuelling inflation. But the EU is deadlocked bet...

A floating LNG gas terminal in the harbour in Wilhelmshaven, Germany, on Nov. 15, 2022. FABIAN BIMMER/Reuters European Union energy regulators were unable to launch a planned liquefied natural gas (LNG) price assessment by a Friday deadline because they did not receive enough data from market participants. The price assessment by the EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) is to be the first step in the EU’s plan to launch a new European benchmark piece for LNG, which Europe is switching to, to replace Russian pipeline gas. Once established, market participants could use the new benchmark as the basis for LNG contracts, which have historically been pegged to the Dutch Title Transfer Facility (TTF) gas hub price that became highly volatile in the last year after Russia slashed pipeline gas deliveries to Europe. But ACER was not able to publish its first daily LNG price assessment as planned on Friday, because only two of nine transactions reported to the regulator we...