Gazprom

Latest story

100 Shares149 Views

EU Leaders Say Putin’s Gas Power Is Weakening

by

In Germany and elsewhere, leaders are growing more confident that months of work to stockpile and line up alternate energy sources may help them blunt Russia’s weaponization of exports.BERLIN — Not long after Russian forces invaded Ukraine, another mobilization began. European energy ministers and diplomats started jetting across the world and inking energy deals — racing to prepare for a rough winter should Russia choose to cut off its cheap gas in retaliation for Western sanctions.Since then, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has fiddled with the gas tap to Europe repeatedly. Through Gazprom, the Kremlin-controlled gas monopoly, Russia has vastly reduced supplies or suspended them for days at a time — until last week, when it announced that it would indefinitely halt flows through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline that supplies Germany, and through it, much of Europe.Yet when the blow finally came, it provoked more ridicule than outrage among European leaders, who say that by now they would expect nothing less from Mr. Putin and that they have accepted that the era of cheap Russian gas is over, unimaginable as that might have seemed just months ago.In some corners, even as Europe’s leaders scramble to blunt the blow from lower gas supplies and higher prices, there is a growing sense that perhaps Russia’s weaponizing of gas exports is a strategy of diminishing returns — and that Mr. Putin may have overplayed his hand.“It would have been surprising the other way around,” Robert Habeck, Germany’s economy minister, said this week of Russia’s announcement that Nord Stream 1 would remain shut. “The only thing from Russia that is reliable is the lies.”Even the markets seemed to take the latest disruption in stride. After rising 5 percent on the heels of Gazprom’s announcement, prices are now lower than they were at the start of last week.That does not mean that European nations are not feeling the pain, or have skirted the risk that the energy crunch could sow social unrest, fracturing their unity against the Kremlin this winter. But a lot of the damage has already been done, with gas prices several times above anything that would be considered normal and pressure mounting on consumers and businesses.The question remains, then, of just how successful the hard pivot from Russian energy actually is — whether Europe has lined up enough new sources, whether its stockpiles can get it through the winter, whether conservation efforts can make a difference and whether governments can help shield consumers from rising prices.“The only thing from Russia that is reliable is the lies,” said Robert Habeck, right, Germany’s economy minister, with Chancellor Olaf Schulz, center, and Christian Lindner, the finance minister.Tobias Schwarz/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesRussian officials are watching and waiting for what they believe is the inevitable collapse of European resolve as the economic pain bites.“I think that the coming winter will show how real their belief is in the possibility of refusing Russian gas,” the Russian energy minister, Nikolai Shulginov, said in an interview with the Russian state-run news agency Tass. “This will be a completely new life for the Europeans. I think that, most likely, they will not be able to refuse.”Russian state news outlets are full of reports of protests in Europe. Italians, Russian state media reported, are being told to boil their pasta for just two minutes before turning off the heat, while Germans are forgoing showers.The message: Sooner or later, the Europeans’ unity against Russia will crumble under the weight of high gas prices, while Russia’s standing has been elevated.“We have not lost anything and will not lose anything,” Mr. Putin said on Wednesday.But increasingly, Europe’s leaders are signaling that, having spent months preparing for this moment, they are ready for the showdown.“Now our work is paying off!” the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said on Wednesday in Brussels. “At the beginning of the war, Russia’s pipeline gas was 40 percent of all imported gas. Today it is now down to only 9 percent of our gas imports.”That is because European leaders — especially those from Italy and Germany, which rely most on Russian energy — have crisscrossed the globe. From Algeria to Qatar, Senegal, Congo and Canada, they have been negotiating deals to replace Russian supplies.Gazprom’s Orenburg gas processing plant in Russia. Steep energy prices netted the company $41.75 billion profit in the first half of the year — $10 billion of which went to the Kremlin.Alexander Manzyuk/ReutersGermany has also leaned heavily on Norway and the Netherlands, which agreed to extend the life of its biggest gas field to combat the energy crisis.As a result, Germany’s dependency on cheap Russian gas — once more than half its overall gas imports — decreased to less than 10 percent in August.In Italy, consumption from Moscow has dropped to 23 percent from 40 percent.Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany and other European leaders are defiantly claiming the end of an era.For decades, dating to the days of the Soviet Union, Moscow had insisted to Germany and others that it was a reliable energy partner, no matter the political context. But now, European leaders say, Mr. Putin has shattered that understanding.“Something that held true throughout the Cold War no longer applies,” Mr. Scholz said last weekend. “Russia is no longer a reliable energy supplier. That is part of the new reality.”That new reality, perhaps, should not have come as such a shock. Mr. Putin’s gas brinkmanship dates to 2004, when Gazprom cut deliveries to Belarus, in a battle for control of a transit pipeline into Western Europe.In 2009, as Ukraine sought NATO membership under a pro-Western president, Mr. Putin ordered a sharp reduction in gas flows through the country; after Ukraine elected a pro-Russian president a year later, the Kremlin rewarded him with a 30 percent cut in natural gas prices.And even before Russia invaded Ukraine, it reduced exports in the summer of 2021, and did not refill Gazprom-owned storage sites in Europe.A compressor station near the German-Polish border for Russian gas through the Yamal-Europe pipeline.Filip Singer/EPA, via ShutterstockSergey Vakulenko, an analyst in Bonn, Germany, who worked for years in Russia’s energy industry, said that over the last two decades Russian officials had seen the geopolitical power that the United States derived from its influence over the global financial system, and sought to harness Russia’s status as a major energy exporter in a similar way.“There was a great desire, as a superpower, to have something similar,” he said. “There was the feeling that oil and gas was the answer.”Yet Russia’s cuts in gas exports to Europe since its invasion of Ukraine are of a different order of magnitude. “This is now just blackmail,” said Mikhail Krutikhin, a Russian energy analyst. “We haven’t seen it on this scale before.”In going so far, Mr. Putin has also invited greater risks. An internal Russian government economic forecast described this week by Bloomberg News estimated that a full cutoff of gas to Europe would cost as much as $6.6 billion in lost tax revenues.But with Gazprom netting a record profit of $41.75 billion in the first half of the year — $10 billion of which it passed on to the Kremlin — that is a cost Mr. Putin has calculated to be acceptable.For Russia, oil is the biggest revenue source, and Mr. Putin may be keen to use gas as a political weapon while he can, said Thomas O’Donnell, an energy expert at the Hertie School, a public policy school in Berlin.“This is where he’s got his biggest leverage to cause the most trouble in the European Union,” Mr. O’Donnell said. He added, “It’s a lever that he knows he’s going to lose in a year — or even maybe after this winter.”And a lot may depend on the severity of the winter. Even if liquid natural gas imports to Europe from other sources continue at their record high rate, a study released this week by the research institute Bruegel estimated that a complete stop to Russian supplies would require all of Europe to cut its consumption by 15 percent.European nations that used to rely on Russian gas imports for big chunks of their domestic energy production have been racing to fill gas storage facilities. Germany’s are now at 86 percent capacity, Italy’s at almost 84 percent.In Germany, large industry players have so far managed to drop their consumption by around 20 percent. A similar amount would have to be shaved off household usage, according to German energy and economy ministry models, should Russian gas remain shut off. If households don’t cut back, Germany’s gas regulator has repeatedly warned, the option could be rationing.Lights switched off in apartments in Frankfurt. German energy officials have repeatedly warned that households must conserve energy or face rationing.Michael Probst/Associated PressEurope is aiming to have enough liquid natural gas solutions in place by next year. Germany recently signed a deal for a fifth floating L.N.G. terminal, while terminals in Belgium, France and the Netherlands are fully booked.The key to surviving this winter in the face of a Nord Stream shutdown will be how well European states work together.So far, only Hungary has signed a deal for additional supplies with Gazprom.France and Germany, in contrast, agreed this week that Paris would send any excess gas to Germany, where it is badly needed, and in return Berlin promised to send its extra electricity.The tricky issue will be what happens should more critical German industry have to cut back, and voters begin to insist supplies not be diverted to neighbors — like the Czech Republic, where 70,000 people already came out in protest of soaring prices. It is a challenge many European leaders may face this winter, warned Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s foreign minister.“That will be the central question that will really put us to the test in the coming months,” Ms. Baerbock said, at a meeting of German ambassadors in Berlin this week. “Will we be able to secure our energy supply for all people in Europe together in solidarity, or not?”Gaia Pianigiani More

More stories

  • 150 Shares139 Views

    in Economy

    Portugal Could Hold an Answer for a Europe Captive to Russian Gas

    by

    Portugal has no coal mines, oil wells or gas fields. Its impressive hydropower production has been crippled this year by drought. And its long-running disconnect from the rest of Europe’s energy network has earned the country its status as an “energy island.”Yet with Russia withholding natural gas from countries opposed to its invasion of Ukraine, the tiny coastal nation of Portugal is suddenly poised to play a critical role in managing Europe’s looming energy crisis.For years, the Iberian Peninsula was cut off from the web of pipelines and huge supply of cheap Russian gas that power much of Europe. And so Portugal and Spain were compelled to invest heavily in renewable sources of energy like wind, solar and hydropower, and to establish an elaborate system for importing gas from North and West Africa, the United States, and elsewhere.Now, access to these alternate energy sources has taken on new significance. The changed circumstances are shifting the power balances among the 27 members of the European Union, creating opportunities as well as political tensions as the bloc seeks to counter Russia’s energy blackmail, manage the transition to renewables and determine infrastructure investments.The Alto Tamega dam, part of a hydropower facility in northern Portugal that will be operational in 2024.Matilde Viegas for The New York TimesThe urgency of Europe’s task is on display this week. On Wednesday, Russia’s energy monopoly, Gazprom, again suspended already reduced gas deliveries to Germany through its Nord Stream 1 pipeline. With natural gas costing about 10 times what it did a year ago, the European Union has called for an emergency meeting of its energy ministers next week.As Brussels tries to figure out how to manage the crisis, the possibility of funneling more gas to Europe through Portugal and Spain is gaining attention.Portugal and Spain were among the first European nations to build the kind of processing terminals needed to accept boatloads of natural gas in liquefied form and to convert it back into the vapor that could be piped into homes and businesses.This imported liquefied natural gas, or L.N.G., was more expensive than the type much of Europe piped in from Russia. But now that Germany, Italy, Finland and other European nations are frantically seeking to replace Russian gas with substitutes shipped by sea from the United States, North Africa and the Middle East, this disadvantage is an advantage.Solar panels in Sintra. Connecting such panels to Europe’s electricity grid could help ease energy shortages on the continent.Matilde Viegas for The New York TimesTogether, Spain and Portugal account for one-third of Europe’s capacity to process L.N.G. Spain has the most terminals and the biggest, though Portugal has the most strategically located.Its terminal in Sines is the closest of any in Europe to the United States and the Panama Canal; it was the first port in Europe to receive L.N.G. from the United States, in 2016. Even before the war in Ukraine, Washington identified it as a strategically important gateway for energy imports to the rest of Europe.Spain also has an extensive network of pipelines that carry natural gas from Algeria and Nigeria, as well as large storage facilities.Understand the Decline in U.S. Gas PricesCard 1 of 5Understand the Decline in U.S. Gas PricesGas prices are falling. More

  • 138 Shares99 Views

    in Economy

    Estonia Never Needed to Import Gas by Ship. Until It Did.

    by

    In Paldiski, Estonia, abandoned Soviet-era bunkers, splattered with graffiti and overgrown with weeds, are a reminder of the centuries-long domination that Russia once exerted over the Baltic region.Now this port city in the northwestern corner of the country is hastily being turned into a bulwark against Russian efforts to politically pressure Europe. Ever since Moscow threatened to withhold natural gas as retribution for countries opposed to its invasion of Ukraine, workers in Paldiski have been constructing an offshore terminal for non-Russian gas at a round-the-clock pace.The project is one piece of Europe’s strategy to quickly wean itself off the Russian energy that is heating homes and powering factories across the continent.The Estonian terminal will serve as a floating dock for a gargantuan processing tanker that will receive deliveries of liquefied natural gas and convert it back into a vapor that can be piped through the existing network that serves the Baltics and Finland. With a scheduled finish date in November, Paldiski is on route to be the first new L.N.G. terminal completed in Europe since the war started.Shipping natural gas in a liquefied form has become Europe’s eureka solution to what the European Commission has labeled “energy blackmail” by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Since the fighting began in late February, 18 new facilities or expansions of existing ones have been proposed in 11 European countries, including Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Greece, according to Rystad Energy.The L.N.G. project in Paldiski is one of 18 proposed or under expansion in Europe since Russia attacked Ukraine.Marta Giaccone for The New York TimesGiant beams were installed with a floating crane.Marta Giaccone for The New York TimesEuropean leaders have been traveling to the Middle East and Africa — including to some countries previously held at arm’s length because of human rights abuses — to compete for the world’s limited L.N.G. supply or plead for the rapid development of additional sources. Until the war, China, South Korea and Japan were the biggest customers.“L.N.G. is really the only supply element that is able to step up for the coming years” during the transition to more climate-friendly renewable energy sources, said James Huckstepp, head of European gas analysis at S&P Global Commodity Insights.Although the United States and Qatar, the biggest producers of L.N.G., are ramping up operations, it will take at least a couple of years to significantly increase capacity. So businesses and households are bracing for high prices and painful shortages during the cold winter months. Governments have drawn up emergency plans to cut consumption and ration energy amid dark warnings of social unrest.Marti Haal, the founder and chairman of the Estonia energy group Alexela, shakes his head at the feverish race to construct liquefied natural gas terminals. He and his brother, Heiti, proposed building one more than a dozen years ago, arguing that it was dangerous for any country to be solely dependent on Russia for natural gas.“If you would talk with anyone in Estonia in 2009 and 2010, they would call me and my brother idiots for pursuing that,” Mr. Haal said. He was driving his limited-edition Bullitt Mustang, No. 694, in Steve McQueen green, to the site of the terminal in Paldiski that his company is now building. He slowed down to point out the border of a restricted zone that existed before the Soviet Army left in 1994. When Moscow was in control, Paldiski was emptied of its population, turned into a nuclear training center and surrounded by barbed wire.The facility was met with shrugs when it was first proposed over a decade ago. Now construction is on a frenzied pace.Marta Giaccone for The New York TimesAs he drove on, Mr. Haal recalled the debate over building an L.N.G. receiving station: “Everybody we talked to said, ‘Why do we need diversification?’” After all, gas had been reliably arriving through Russian pipelines since the 1950s.Today the brothers are looking more like visionaries. “If at the time, they would have listened to us, we wouldn’t have to run like crazy now to solve the problem,” Mr. Haal said.Mr. Haal, who spent that morning competing in a regatta, always had an entrepreneurial streak — even under Communism. In 1989, as the Soviet Union was dissolving, he and his brother started building and selling car trailers. Mr. Haal said he would drag one on board the ferry to Finland — the fare to bring it by car was too expensive — and deliver it to a buyer at the Helsinki port. He collected the cash and then returned to pay everyone’s salary.When they started selling gas, they named the company Alexela — a palindrome — so that they would have to erect only one sign that could be read by drivers in both directions.Their L.N.G. venture at one point looked like a failure. As it turns out, the millions of dollars and years of frustration meant that when Estonia and Finland agreed in April to share the cost of renting an L.N.G. processing vessel and build floating terminals, the preliminary research and development was already done.In the months leading up to Russia’s invasion, Mr. Haal said, soaring gas prices had already begun to change the economics of investing in an L.N.G. terminal. Now, his major concern is ensuring that the Estonian government completes the pipeline connection to the national gas network on time.Over the years, the question of building more L.N.G. facilities — in addition to the two dozen or so already in Europe — has been repeatedly debated in ports and capitals. Opponents argued that shipping the chilled, liquefied natural gas was much more expensive than the flow from Russia. The required new infrastructure of port terminals and pipes aroused local opposition. And there was resistance to investing so much money in a fossil fuel that climate agreements had eventually targeted for extinction.One of the countries saying no was Europe’s largest economy, Germany, which was getting 55 percent of its gas from Russia.“The general overview was that Europe had more L.N.G. capacity than it needs,” said Nina Howell, a partner at the law firm King and Spalding. After the invasion, projects that had not been considered commercially viable, “and probably wouldn’t have made it, then suddenly got government support.”The first layer of reinforced concrete structure.Marta Giaccone for The New York TimesConcrete line pressure pipes.Marta Giaccone for The New York TimesEstonia, which shares a 183-mile border with Russia, is actually the European country least dependent on its gas. Roughly three-quarters of Estonia’s energy supply comes from domestically produced oil shale, giving it more independence but putting it behind on climate goals.Still, like the other former Soviet republics Lithuania and Latvia, as well as former Communist bloc countries like Poland, Estonia was always more wary of Russia’s power plays.Two days before the war started, the Estonian prime minister chided “countries which don’t border Russia” for not thinking through the risks of depending on Russian energy.By contrast, Poland moved to quit itself of Russian natural gas and began work in 2013 on a pipeline that will deliver supplies from Norway. It is scheduled to be completed in October. Lithuania — which at one point had received 100 percent of its supply through a single pipeline from the Russian monopoly Gazprom — went ahead and completed its own small L.N.G. terminal in 2014, the year that Russia annexed Crimea.Liquefied natural gas terminals are not the only energy source that European countries once disdained and are now compelled to explore. In a hotly disputed decision, the European Parliament last month reclassified some gas and nuclear power as “green.” The Netherlands is re-examining fracking. And Germany is refiring coal plants and even rethinking its determined rejection of nuclear energy.In Paldiski, enormous wind turbines are along the coast of the Pakri peninsula. On this day, gusts were strong enough not only to spin the blades but also to halt work on the floating terminal. A giant tracked excavator was parked on the sand. At the end of a long skeletal pier, the tops of 200-foot-long steel pipes that had been slammed into the seabed poked up through the water like a skyline of rust-colored chimney stacks.Paldiski Bay, which is ice-free year-round and has direct access to the Baltic Sea, has always been an important commercial and strategic gateway. Generations before the Soviets parked their nuclear submarines there; the Russian czar Peter the Great built a military fortress and port there in the 18th century.Now, the bay is again playing a similar role — only this time not for Russia.Remains of a Soviet-era bunker. The region that will boost the energy security of the Baltics was used as a nuclear training site when Moscow was in charge.Marta Giaccone for The New York Times More

  • 163 Shares119 Views

    in Economy

    Why the Toughest Sanctions on Russia Are the Hardest for Europe to Wield

    by

    Moscow relies on the money it makes by selling oil and gas, but that energy fuels Europe’s economy and heats its homes.The punishing sanctions that the United States and European Union have so far announced against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine include shutting the government and banks out of global financial markets, restricting technology exports and freezing assets of influential Russians. Noticeably missing from that list is a reprisal that might cause Russia the most pain: choking off the export of Russian fuel.The omission is not surprising. In recent years, the European Union has received nearly 40 percent of its gas and more than a quarter of its oil from Russia. That energy heats Europe’s homes, powers its factories and fuels its vehicles, while pumping enormous sums of money into the Russian economy.How each country’s dependence on Russian gas has changedShare of total natural gas imports from Russia More

  • 125 Shares189 Views

    in Economy

    New U.S. Sanctions Target Russian Company Behind Nord Stream 2

    by

    The move by President Biden came as administration officials warned that a Russian military assault on Ukraine could be imminent.WASHINGTON — President Biden said on Wednesday that he would issue economic sanctions on the company behind a new natural gas pipeline between Russia and Germany, the latest in a series of penalties that the White House has promised will continue as Russia escalates hostilities against Ukraine.The move by Mr. Biden came hours before President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia began a military operation in Ukraine that administration officials had warned could be a full-scale assault. But it was also a reversal for the president after he waived sanctions against the pipeline, known as Nord Stream 2, last year despite calls from both Democrats and Republicans to halt the energy project.“These steps are another piece of our initial tranche of sanctions in response to Russia’s actions in Ukraine,” Mr. Biden said in a statement on Wednesday before the Russian military operation. “As I have made clear, we will not hesitate to take further steps if Russia continues to escalate.”Administration officials said Mr. Biden decided it was necessary to move forward with the penalties after Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany announced on Tuesday that he would suspend the certification of the pipeline in response to Moscow ordering Russian troops to cross the border into separatist regions in eastern Ukraine that the Kremlin has recognized as independent states.The new sanctions are against a subsidiary of Gazprom, a Russian company that is controlled by the Kremlin, and they are part of a unified effort by NATO allies meant to stop what Mr. Biden has described as “the beginning of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.”On Wednesday, the European Union also announced new sanctions on Russia’s defense minister, Mr. Putin’s chief of staff and high-profile Russians from the media world. On Tuesday, the Biden administration imposed sanctions on two Russian banks and a handful of the country’s elites and cut off the ability of Russia to raise financing in Western markets. The administration said it was preserving the possibility of even greater sanctions if Mr. Putin escalates the conflict by trying to seize more territory in Ukraine — or even the entire country.The White House did not issue the sanctions against the company behind the gas pipeline earlier because it was unclear whether those measures would halt the project, which was already 90 percent completed when Mr. Biden took office, according to Ned Price, a spokesman for the State Department.President Biden meeting with Mr. Scholz in the Oval Office this month. The Nord Stream 2 pipeline has caused years of tension between the United States and Germany.Al Drago for The New York TimesBut on Tuesday, Mr. Scholz gave Mr. Biden an opening when he halted the certification of the project.“So by acting together with the Germans,” Mr. Price said, “we have ensured that this is an $11 billion prize investment that is now a hunk of steel sitting at the bottom of the sea.”Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, had described the action against the pipeline as part of an attempt to stop an armed conflict.“What we’re trying to do is prevent a war, prevent devastation on the Ukrainian people,” Ms. Psaki said. Referring to Mr. Putin, she said, “We’re going to continue to make clear that if he continues to escalate, we will as well.”But the sanctions apparently did not discourage Mr. Putin from advancing in Ukraine, as he announced a mission to “demilitarize” the country early Thursday local time, and explosions were reported from Kyiv, the capital, and other cities.The Nord Stream 2 pipeline has caused years of tension between Germany and the United States. Germany has long been hesitant to endanger its energy trade with Russia; Mr. Scholz last month dodged questions of whether he agreed with Mr. Biden’s assertion that the project would be stopped if Russia invaded Ukraine.Still, Mr. Biden’s move was welcomed by Democrats and Republicans who had for a year called for him to quickly punish Russia and halt the pipeline.Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, on Wednesday lifted his objections to 17 of Mr. Biden’s nominees, many of them for State Department positions, now that the president has announced sanctions on the company behind the pipeline.Mr. Cruz had used Senate procedure to slow down the pace at which the chamber could approve Mr. Biden’s nominations, demanding that the administration impose sanctions on Nord Stream 2.“Allowing Putin’s Nord Stream 2 to come online would have created multiple cascading and acute security crises for the United States and our European allies for generations to come,” Mr. Cruz said.Senator Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio, said that the initial sanctions announced by the administration this week were “an important first step,” but that they did not “go far enough.”“To create an effective deterrent, tougher sanctions must be expanded to other financial institutions and export controls must be implemented,” Mr. Portman said.Mr. Biden had previously said the pipeline was too advanced to stop. “Nord Stream is 99 percent finished,” he said last year. “The idea that anything was going to be said or done that was going to stop it is not possible.” The construction of the pipeline was completed last year but the project’s approval process had been stalled.Daleep Singh, a deputy national security adviser, said on Tuesday that shutting down the project would sacrifice “what would have been a cash cow for Russia’s coffers.”“It’s not just about the money,” Mr. Singh said. “This decision will relieve Russia’s geostrategic chokehold over Europe through its supply of gas, and it’s a major turning point in the world’s energy independence from Russia.”On Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Wendy R. Sherman, the deputy secretary of state, spoke with top European diplomats to coordinate economic sanctions against Russia, the State Department said.Catie Edmondson More

  • 113 Shares189 Views

    in Economy

    High Natural Gas Prices Strain Europeans, Weighing on Recovery

    by

    Crimped supplies and increased demand have pushed energy prices to their highest in years, raising concerns about the winter.LONDON — As the world struggles to recover from the pandemic, soaring natural gas prices threaten to become a drag on the economies of Europe and elsewhere. Wholesale prices for the fuel are at their highest in years — nearly five times where they were at this time in 2019, before people started falling ill with the virus.The high costs feed into electric power prices and have begun showing up in utility bills, weighing on consumers whose personal finances have already been strained by the pandemic. The price jumps are unusual because demand is typically relatively low in the warmer summer months, raising alarms about the prospects for further increases when demand jumps in the winter.Spanish households are paying roughly 40 percent more than what they paid for electricity a year ago as the wholesale price has more than doubled, prompting angry protests against utility companies. “The electricity price hike has created a lot of indignation, and this is of course moving onto the streets,” said María Campuzano, spokeswoman for the Alliance against Energy Poverty, a Spanish association that helps people struggling to pay energy bills.The pain is being felt across Europe, where gas is used for home heating and cooking as well as electric power generation. Citing record natural gas prices, Britain’s energy regulatory agency, Ofgem, recently gave utilities a green light to increase the ceiling on energy bills for millions of households paying standard rates by about 12 percent, to 1,277 pounds, or $1,763, a year.Several trends are to blame for soaring prices, including a resurgence of global demand after pandemic lockdowns, led by China, and a European cold snap in the latter part of winter this year that drained storage levels. The higher-than-expected demand and crimped supply are “a perfect storm,” said Marco Alverà, chief executive of Snam, the large gas company in Milan.The worry is that if Europe has a cold winter, prices could climb further, possibly forcing some factories to temporarily shut down.“If it is cold, then we’re in trouble,” Mr. Alverà said.A Gazprom facility in Siberia. Russia, Europe’s largest gas supplier, and Algeria have substantially increased their exports but not enough to ease market concerns. Maxim Shemetov/ReutersThe jump has prompted some to call for an acceleration of the shift from fossil fuels to clean domestic energy sources like wind and solar power to free consumers from being at the mercy of global commodity markets.“The reality is we need to switch to renewables faster,” said Greg Jackson, chief executive of Octopus Energy, a British utility.On the other hand, the turbulence in prices may also be a harbinger of volatility if energy companies begin to give up on fossil fuel production before renewable sources are ready to pick up the slack, analysts say. In addition, the closure of coal-fired generating plants in Britain and other countries has reduced flexibility in the system, Mr. Alverà said.Gas prices in the United States have risen as well, but they are only around a quarter of those being paid in Europe. The United States has a big price advantage over Europe because of its large domestic supply of relatively cheap gas from shale drilling and other activities, while Europe must import most of its gas. The immediate worry for markets in Europe is that suppliers have not followed their usual practice and used the summer months to fill storage chambers with cheap gas that will be used during the winter, when cold weather more than doubles the consumption of gas in countries like Britain and Germany.Instead, suppliers responded to the cold weather late last winter by draining gas storage facilities. Subsequently, they have been reluctant to top them up with high-priced gas. As a result, European storage facilities are at the depleted levels usual in winter rather than the peaks of fall.“The market is very nervous as we move into the winter season,” said Laura Page, an analyst at Kpler, a research firm. “We have very low storage levels for the time of year.”Europe imports around 60 percent of its gas, with supplies coming by pipeline from Russia and to a lesser extent Algeria and Libya.Liquefied natural gas, arriving by ship from the United States, Qatar and elsewhere, usually helps balance the market. This year, though, L.N.G. carriers have been drawn to higher prices in China, South Korea and Brazil, where a drought has caused a drop in power generated by dams.As a result, Italy, Spain and northwest Europe have seen a sharp decline in liquefied natural gas infusions, according to data from Wood Mackenzie, a market research firm.The dispatching center for Snam, an Italian gas company. Its chief executive said “a perfect storm” of high demand and limited supply had pushed gas prices higher. Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesAdding to the tight situation in Europe, Groningen, the giant gas field in the Netherlands that long served as a safety valve for both its home country and western Germany, is being gradually shut down because of earthquakes. Over the last year European gas prices have risen from around $4 per million British thermal units to about $18.Russia, the largest gas supplier to Europe, and Algeria have substantially increased their exports but not enough to ease market concerns. Some analysts question whether Gazprom, Russia’s gas company, is pursuing a high-price strategy or trying to persuade the West to allow the completion of its Nord Stream 2 pipeline project, which will deliver gas from Russia to Germany. “On the face of it, it looks as though some sort of game is being played here,” said Graham Freedman, an analyst at Wood Mackenzie. On the other hand, Mr. Freedman said, it could be that Gazprom doesn’t have any more gas to export.A spokeswoman for Gazprom said: “Our mission is to fulfill contractual obligations to our clients, not to ‘reduce the concerns’ of an abstract market.” She added that Gazprom had increased supplies to near-record levels this year.Construction of the 746-mile pipeline, which runs under the Baltic Sea, was halted last year just short of completion off Germany’s shores by the threat of sanctions from the United States. But in a deal with Germany in July, the Biden administration agreed to drop its threat to stop the pipeline. On Monday, the management company for the project said it aimed to have the pipeline operating this year.Stanley Reed reported from London, and Raphael Minder from Madrid. More