Natural gas whiplash

The natural gas market has been through a wild ride, especially in Europe. The pandemic first pushed the prices way down. Then a resurgent economy and an unusually long European winter sent them back up to record heights. And by September of last year, Russia had dramatically cut natural gas flows to Europe, further squeezing supply.

The high prices were especially painful for the continent, which relies heavily on the fuel for home heating, industry and power plants. But high prices also catalyzed efforts to shift to lower carbon technologies like renewables, hydrogen and heat pumps.

Then fast forward to this past December, and now gas prices have plummeted again. What’s going on? What’s causing these rapid swings and what might happen next?

In this episode, Shayle talks to Anne-Sophie Corbeau, research scholar at Columbia University’s SIPA Center on Global Energy Policy where she studies natural gas and hydrogen. Her article, “Putin’s energy gambit fizzles as warm winter saves Europe” recently ran in Bloomberg.

They discuss how we got here, covering topics like:

• The range of factors at play, such as LNG cargos, a European drought, and unusual weather patterns
• Whether Europe might resume large-scale natural gas imports from Russia
• Why China’s zero covid policy and an unusually warm winter amounted to a lucky break for Europe

What topics should we cover on the show? Send us an email or voice memo to catalyst@postscripaudio.com.

Catalyst is a co-production of Post Script Media and Canary Media.

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