Russia-Ukraine fallout may raise gas prices 45 pct

Europe will not run short of gas this winter even if a new deal for deliveries of Russian gas through Ukraine is not completed when the existing agreement lapses at the end of the month, a German study said on Wednesday.

“Gas supply for the winter is secure, even if the talks about gas shipments from Russia via Ukraine to Europe were to fail,” said the study, carried out by the Institute of Energy Economics (EWI) in Cologne.

Disruption of transit to Europe through Ukraine in January 2020 could result in a drop in Russian gas exports to the European Union by 6.3 billion cubic meters that month, an EWI scenario showed.

Underground storage would supply 83 percent of the shortfall and imports of liquefied natural gas the rest, it said.

This would push up German prices by 5 percent, but those in Greece by 45 percent. The latter is isolated from the main European gas grid.

[Reuters]