Next week’s minutes of the last Federal Reserve meeting should give more detail on the bank’s thinking. There’s also the United Nations’ annual report on food security, which comes ahead of an important month for the war-torn wheat market.Just as Europe’s fears over Russian gas supplies reach fever pitch, the man in the Kremlin unleashed another energy surprise. Putin delivered a bombshell for foreign investors in Sakhalin-2, including Shell as well as Japan’s Mitsubishi Corp.
The focus remains on heavy consumer Germany, which already raised its gas risk level to the second-highest “alarm” phase, tightening monitoring of the market and rebooting some coal-fired power plants. The next step could be more stringent steps to spur demand destruction. Allowing utilities to pass on higher costs to customers would speed rationing of supplies, but that’s an option Economy Minister Robert Habeck has so far resisted.