Originally written May 26th, 2022:
Natural gas supplied 24% of energy demand in the EU in 2020, according to the scientific journal Nature. It’s a crucial commodity for the European continent, and changes in natural prices affect households from Finland to Portugal.
Since mid-2020, natural gas prices in Europe have ripped higher, especially relative to prices in the United States.
In this chart, we show European natural gas prices against American natural gas prices since the middle of 2020. Both prices have been converted to equivalent (Euros per mmbtu) units.
The run up in European prices has a variety of contributing causes, including a particularly cold 2020-21 winter, according to the Economist. The Russian war in Ukraine has exacerbated supply concerns and elevated prices even further, as Russia is a major supplier of natural gas to the EU.
Let us know what you think about energy price volatility in the comments. As always, we’ll continue to cover this topic going forward.