OREANDA-NEWS. May 27, 2015. The strongest year for European gas demand since the 2008 financial crisis was 2010, a year impacted by the El Nino weather phenomenon. With international weather agencies now identifying the signs of the first El Nino conditions since 2010, could this be a sign of a cold winter ahead, and strong gas demand to come? 

European gas demand has been sliding since the financial crisis, hit by the weaker economy, the growth of renewables, and competition from coal. The one strong year for gas demand since the crisis was 2010, when trade association Eurogas reported a 7% boost in demand from the previous year. The following year demand fell back 11% again.

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2010 was an El Ni?o year, when global weather patterns were affected by the El Nino phenomenon, when warming of the Pacific Ocean sees a huge release of heat into the atmosphere that can disrupt weather patterns around the world.

The UK’s national weather agency, the Met Office, says that El Nino years are associated with a range of weather patterns around the world, including the risk of colder winters in the UK.

Major global weather organizations are now reporting the start of the first El Nino conditions in the Pacific in five years. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced “El Ni?o is here” in early March, and in its latest update on May 14 said there was “a greater than 80% chance it will last through 2015.” Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology is also producing regular updates on growing El Nino conditions.

The US NOAA says that the last El Nino of 2009-2010 was “a moderate to strong event.” Other recent El Ninos were in 2002-2003 (moderate), 2004-2005 (weak), 2006-2007 (weak to moderate), with the last “very strong” El Nino in 1997-1998.

So could this be a signal of a possible cold winter ahead for Europe in 2015-2016, and a new boost to gas demand?

Offering a contrasting opinion, Todd Crawford, seasonal expert at forecast agency WSI, used by many energy companies, told Platts this week that WSI expects “a strong El Nino” this winter, but that in fact “these events typically result in milder winters across Europe.”

“The 2009-2010 cold winter was completely unrelated to El Ni?o, and was driven by unusually strong North Atlantic blocking that was, for the most part, driven by the very ‘strong’ solar minimum,” Crawford said.

WSI says that “strong El Ninos are generally ‘demand-eaters’ across major population centers of the northern hemisphere,” resulting in “cooler summers and warmer winters.”

But Jeff Knight, climate variability modelling manager at the UK Met Office, told Platts his agency does think “the El Ni?o event that was happening in winter 2009-2010 did make the cold European conditions more likely.”

“Looking at many previous El Nino events, we do see a systematic tendency for colder winters, although this effect is not dominant,” Knight said.

The Met Office agrees that low solar activity, such as was prevalent in 2009-2010, “can contribute to cold European winters,” also shifting the odds, without having a dominant effect.

But Knight said there were a number of factors to consider, “including El Ni?o/La Ni?a, the stratospheric quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO), the North Atlantic Ocean, the solar cycle, explosive volcanic eruptions, Indonesian thunderstorms, Arctic sea-ice and Eurasian snow cover.”

“None of these alone guarantee a cold winter but [they] can shift the odds, especially if they act in combination,” Knight said.