Those reports helped send the oil price as high as $117 a barrel <\/a>on Friday. The international Brent crude benchmark retreated about 2% on Monday but remains over $114 a barrel.<\/p>\n Europe is also facing a shortage of stored gas reserves as it heads into winter with stores at their lowest level in more than a decade owing to a slowdown in exports from Qatar and an increase in consumption in the summer to power refrigeration and cooling. European storage is now about 75% full, against a seasonal average closer to 80%.<\/p>\n Britain\u2019s energy regulators have said the country is expected to pay some of the highest energy costs in Europe <\/a>this winter amid a reliance on imports to ensure a steady supply. The UK has some of the smallest gas stores in Europe<\/a> after decades of relying on homegrown production from the North Sea.<\/p>\n The UK paid a record \u00a34bn on power imports over the year ending in August, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics, of which half was spent on electricity imported from France.<\/p>\n It has also made near-record payments over the past year to fire up gas plants while wind and solar farms have been paid to turn off because of bottlenecks in the grid.<\/p>\n
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