European Gas Prices Hold Near €50 With Supply Fears Easing

(Bloomberg) — European natural gas prices held near the lowest level in three weeks as sentiment eases after a rocky start to 2025.

Benchmark futures traded close to €50 a megawatt-hour on Monday, after plunging from a two-year high last week to erase most of the year’s gains. 

Europe saw prices rally in recent weeks as cold weather led to rapid withdrawals from its gas reserves, sparking fears that traders may not be able to source enough gas to replenish them this summer. But European Union-level talks over potentially easing storage requirements have helped to ease some of those concerns.

For now, the weather is also helping, with temperatures in the northwest expected to rise above usual seasonal levels in the coming days. Europe’s imports of liquefied natural gas have also surged recently, helping slow inventory withdrawals.

Rystad Energy analysts wrote in a Monday note that they expect fuel in European underground storage sites drop to around 43 billion cubic meters, which corresponds to a filling level of 39%, before recovering to around 48 billion cubic meters, or 43%, at the end of the heating season in late March. 

In addition, US President Donald Trump’s administration is pushing for a quick end to the war in Ukraine, raising expectations that at least some lost gas flows from Russia may return. Any deal would likely take months to finalize.

Dutch front-month futures, Europe’s gas benchmark, was little changed at €50.83 a megawatt-hour by 10:25 a.m. in Amsterdam. 

–With assistance from Anna Shiryaevskaya.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com