{"id":419535,"date":"2026-01-17T17:44:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T17:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/419535\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T17:44:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T17:44:14","slug":"gas-prices-soar-40-amid-perfect-storm-of-pressures-money-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/419535\/","title":{"rendered":"Gas prices soar 40% amid ‘perfect storm’ of pressures | Money News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wholesale natural gas prices have risen by more than 40% this month as a raft of pressures, described by one analyst as a “perfect storm”, threaten to raise energy bills ahead.<\/p>\n

Day-ahead prices for UK delivery were at a six-month high on Friday, a rise of more than 14% on the day, as contracts across Europe rose according to LSEG data.<\/p>\n

Europe has witnessed a price spike this year as cold weather and low gas storage levels combined with slowing deliveries of liquified natural gas (LNG), mainly from the US.<\/p>\n

Money latest: The area where \u00a310m lottery prize is unclaimed<\/a><\/p>\n

Contracts for the coming months also rose sharply.<\/p>\n

The UK February delivery price was more than 8 pence per therm higher on the day at more than 98p.<\/p>\n

Gas Infrastructure Europe data suggested that storage levels were at just 52% capacity.<\/p>\n

A relatively quiet start to the European winter saw natural gas costs in early January fall to their lowest level since stocks were being replenished late last spring.<\/p>\n

But colder weather across northern Europe has prompted a spike in use and given rise to fears that supplies are vulnerable due to the LNG squeeze, partly blamed on shipments diverting to Asia, where costs are often higher.<\/p>\n

Arne Lohmann Rasmussen, chief analyst at Global Risk Management, said the market had been hit by a “perfect storm” of cold weather forecasts, depleting \u200cstorage, geopolitical risk in Iran and speculative trading activity that had seen short positions closed.<\/p>\n

Long-range forecasts suggest a plunge in temperatures towards the end of the month, with lower wind speeds exacerbating the situation as green infrastructure would be unable to fill the void despite record capacity.<\/p>\n

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Share<\/p>\n

\n Offshore wind: Powering our future?\n <\/p>\n

Data from the National Energy System Operator showed electricity from gas-fired power was responsible for 36% of UK provision, followed closely by wind, on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The recent national cold snap saw the figure for gas climb well above 50% across four days.<\/p>\n

A prolonged price spike for wholesale gas would be expected to be reflected in future household energy bills.<\/p>\n

Current fixed rate deals could rise before the next energy price cap review is due to take effect at the beginning of April.<\/p>\n

The government says that eradicating gas price volatility is a major reason behind its push for a renewables-based energy system.<\/p>\n

This week saw a record offshore wind auction<\/a> completed, leaving the country on track to meet its 2030 clean power goals.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

But an 11% increase in the so-called strike price means that the cost of achieving those ambitions has also gone up.<\/p>\n

Jess Ralston, energy analyst at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, said: “Following years of price volatility that have left… households with debt and industry with billions of extra costs, it\u2019s a reminder that the price of gas is largely set by the actions of foreign actors, beyond our control.<\/p>\n

“The North Sea is continuing to run out of gas and won’t help to lower bills or provide security of supply. The latest renewables auction this week secured a record amount of offshore wind, which will cut our need for gas and so stabilise prices and shield households from future gas price spikes. Wind cut the wholesale day-ahead electricity price by around a third in 2025.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wholesale natural gas prices have risen by more than 40% this month as a raft of pressures, described…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419536,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,164],"class_list":{"0":"post-419535","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-economy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}