Thanks to a number of factors, it seems that the natural gas price is going to increase dramatically soon (it already started, but the winter will aggravate this to some extent).
As Bloomberg's Javier Blas notes today, both UK NBP and Dutch TTF natural gas benchmarks have closed the day at their highest ever settlement level, up ~11% on the day (to a closing price equal to more than $26 per mBtu).
Source: zerohedge.com
And this is when about more than half a million households in the Netherlands start to have trouble covering their energy bills. That probably equals to some 1.5 - 2 millions people around here. And the companies are affected as well by this: and increased natural gas price means increased productions costs, that ultimately are translated to increased prices. But the inflation is transitory, righhhtt?
As a personal curiosity I've checked today how much is the gas price if I will move my energy contract (randomly chosen a provider - energydirect.nl)
My current contract price is 0.76 euro/m3. That means that the current increase (the optimistic case) is 25%!!!
Well, at least we have a silver lining in old this: a lot of people will cut their heat expenses during the winter*, consuming less natural gas and therefore doing something about the climate change and saving the planet. The downside is that will be cold in their home. With a health risk. Feeling like 16th century. Yeah...
Obviously, this will be the proper moment for the governments to sell even more green energy propaganda, that we need even more windmills and solar panels and stuff like that. And that natural gas is bad for the environment, okey?!
Be sure that a lot of people will agree after this winter, by just looking at their energy bills.
* some smart ones might change to fully electric heating; however, the cost of electricity will not be funny to see, and if more electricity will be required, a lot will come by burning natural gas. Which is bloody expensive as it is.
