Shell chief executive Ben van Beurden has warned that Europe may need to ration access to energy for several years. Photograph: Benoit Tessier/Reuters
The crisis would test “solidarity” between EU member states as governments were forced to decide how to keep key industries going, Mr van Beurden said on Monday, as the region prepares for a future without access to Russian gas.“It may well be that we have a number of winters where we have to somehow find solutions through efficiency savings, through rationing and a very, very quick buildout of alternatives,” he said.
Europe’s benchmark gas price soared by almost a third last week to more than €343 per megawatt hour on Friday, as traders and utilities rushed to secure supplies ahead of the winter. That is more than 30 times higher than prices two years ago, and more than 10 times their current level in the US. Fortum urged Nordic regulators to help stabilise the power market by adjusting the collateral requirements, warning that a default of a smaller player would cause “severe disturbances to the Nordic power system”.