OREANDA-NEWS. The price of gas in Europe breaks records in the summer and for the first time exceeded $ 400 per thousand cubic meters after Gazprom stopped booking the capacity of the Ukraine pipeline system for the transit of gas from Russia to the EU. The price is up 4% today to reach $ 414, according to trading data from the TTF hub and London's ICE Futures exchange.

Gazprom has scheduled scheduled repairs on the Nord Stream and Yamal-Europe export pipelines from July 13 to July 23 from July 6 to 10. The first pumps 170 million cubic meters of gas per day, the second - 100 million cubic meters per day. Russian gas is supplied to the EU and via the Turkish Stream pipeline from Russia through the Black Sea and Turkey. Meanwhile, since the beginning of the year, Gazprom has continued to support an increase in supplies to the EU by a third compared to last year.

The Ukrainian gas transportation system is loaded by about a third only at the expense of Gazprom, and the rest of the free capacity is put up for auction. But the Russian company did not buy them out at the end of the auction on June 29.

European power plants need more and more gas - Europeans use air conditioners more due to the abnormal heat. In winter, the situation was the opposite in the EU - more electricity and heat were needed for heating due to abnormal cold weather. In early June, gas prices exceeded the February high by almost $ 100 and have not dropped since then.

All this led to the devastation of underground gas storage facilities (UGS) in the EU. The volume of gas pumped into UGS facilities in Europe remains 17% below the average level of previous years.