Strike averted: After a long night of negotiations, the unions had basically accepted an offer from the operating company, reports Bloomberg. This has an impact on the gas price in Europe.
European gas prices fell on Thursday after reports a strike at Australia’s largest LNG plant may have been averted. In the morning, the trend-setting futures contract TTF for delivery in one month was traded on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange at EUR 32.30 per megawatt hour (MWh). It was around 12 percent below the previous day’s level, in the meantime the minus had been more than 21 percent.
The background is a report on an initially averted strike at an Australian liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant. After a long night of negotiations, the unions basically accepted an offer from the operating company, the Bloomberg news agency reported. Details of the agreement should be announced on Thursday.
It is true that the European gas storage facilities are well filled, and in Germany the level is over 93 percent. Nevertheless, the region is dependent on steady supplies of liquid gas. Australia primarily supplies the Asian market. Should these deliveries fail, however, Europe’s suppliers such as Qatar or the USA could step in and reduce the supply in this country.
The price of European natural gas is now well below the level it was just before the start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022, although still higher than in 2021.
After negotiations between the oil company Chevron and its employees at two of its LNG plants, the unions decided to take strike action there. But this decision had little effect on gas prices. The US group’s two liquefaction plants account for around five percent of global capacity.
Source: Stern
