European gas price tops €90 per MWh, a four-year high in Czechia

Wholesale gas prices on the key European exchange in the Netherlands rose 2.4% on Tuesday afternoon to €90.16 per megawatt-hour. According to Bloomberg, that is the highest level since December 2022 and roughly triple what prices were before the war with Iran.

Electricity is getting more expensive too: German contracts for next year have hit their highest prices since July 2023. Gas is still a long way from the records of the 2022 energy crisis, but the current spike will hit both consumers and industry. European governments are so far mostly refusing to bring back costly price caps and tax breaks: tight budgets and expensive borrowing make them reluctant to launch a new round of energy support.

Some suppliers in Czechia have already started raising prices, and during the current heating season costs for consumers are likely to rise further. This applies only to some new contracts: if your price is fixed, nothing will change until the contract expires. Those who buy at current spot prices, however, will feel the difference.

Europe will most likely have to pay more this winter to attract enough LNG tankers, as demand for liquefied gas in Asia is high. On top of that, the cold is arriving while the region's storage sites are only about 75% full, the lowest level for this time of year since records began in 2009. In Germany, the region's largest economy, storage is a little over 61% full; in Czechia, about 77%.

Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz