OREANDA-NEWS. The price of gas in Europe has exceeded $1,9 thousand per thousand cubic meters, according to data from the London ICE exchange. During the day, the price increased by about $200. The last time it rose to this level was in early October of this year.

Earlier it became known that the extraction of gas from European storage facilities in November, cold for Europe, reached the maximum level in the last five years — 11.2 billion cubic meters. Given the current rate of extraction of gas reserves may not be enough until the end of the heating season, especially if the winter is cold. At the same time, Gazprom's gas sales to Europe are declining due to high prices, exports via Poland via the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline remain extremely low, and Gazprom itself does not offer additional volumes of gas that could increase supply on the market.

The Russian corporation Gazprom itself booked only 4.3% of the proposed capacities for natural gas transit through Poland via the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline on December 20. The auction offered pumping capacity of 89.1 million cubic meters per day, but the company booked only 3.8 million cubic meters.

Gazprom started the practice of booking daily capacity in December. In November, the company did not order additional gas transit capacity through Poland for December. Gazprom said it could quickly book additional capacity on a shorter basis — for a separate week or day.