Letter on Europe: More gas winters of discontent?

Warnings in 2022 of a potential three-winter European gas price crisis remain pertinent amid push-pull from the US and Russia

Back in the spring of 2022 when Russia invaded the Ukraine, gas market analysts suggested Europe faced three winters of potential crisis. Since then, Europe has learned to manage with much-reduced supplies of Russian pipeline gas, but it has been left exposed to the volatility and uncertainty of the global LNG marketEurope has been able pivot to seaborne LNG as an alternative source of supply. At the same time, gas demand has been depressed and efforts have been made to increase renewable power generation. But that does not diminish the threat levels: the summer of 2022 saw a perfect storm as high temperatures in Europe resulted in reduced power production and panic-buying drove LNG prices t