scrumpyjack wrote:I think by next year Europe will have hugely increased the ability to receive gas from elsewhere and so there will not be the same problem next winter. LNG receiving facilities are being built as well as increased storage. The large fall in gas futures prices reflects that expectation
No - apart from as I said, the big fall is in spot prices because of a spectacularly warm October at a time when storage is already full. But prices even a few months out haven't moved nearly as much.
And whilst you obviously need receiving facilities, the limiting factor is supply - you can't just rustle up 20bcm or more of gas out of nowhere. That's why Mr Market thinks that next winter will still be difficult, but things may be starting to get easier - if still not back to "normal" - by the winter of 2024/5.
And things could still get worse - Russia could pull the 10-12 bcm going through the trans-Ukraine pipeline, or the 20bcm/year going to Europe via LNG, or the 15bcm/year going through Turkstream. Rystad have done some modelling on that kind of thing (needs Economist sub or the ability to read HTML, the full article is in the source code....) :
https://www.economist.com/finance-and-e ... -from-overOf course it depends somewhat on what happens in Ukraine - I'd say it's probably 60:40 that active military operations will have ceased one way or another by the summer, but then the real fun begins. I'd say it's an evens bet whether Russia will have the same borders in 3 years time as it did before 2014 - with Chechnya being the obvious starting point for a second round of succession from the Muscovite empire, maybe Dagestan as well. And the Muscovite president's life will probably be easier if Chechnya goes than if it stays...