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European natural gas prices hit a fresh three-year high as traders race to fill fuel storage facilities ahead of winter, while awaiting details of an Iran-Oman deal on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
Benchmark futures rose as much as 3.4% Tuesday to the highest since Jan. 2023. While Tehran said an accord is imminent and will include a temporary safe route, it remains unclear for traders how the US will respond after striking Iranian tankers over the weekend, and the risk of ship attacks remain high.
Oil also advanced after strikes on Saudi Arabia's energy sites injected more uncertainty across markets.
Europe needs higher gas prices in order to attract more seaborne cargoes to its shores, but with less than a month left until the heating season, the region's inventories are still lagging behind. Storage is now just 67% full, compared with a seasonal norm of 83%.
"As the European gas market heads into winter with unusually low inventories, its flexibility to absorb further supply or demand shocks is limited," Timera Energy analysts wrote in a note. "Europe is pricing up to outcompete Asia for marginal LNG."
In Germany, home to the continent's biggest storage facilities, sites are only around half full. The country could technically reach its national target for filling them by Nov. 1 if customers make sufficient use of the capacity they have booked, according to gas storage group INES. But if there are extreme cold spells during winter, a fill level of about 77% would not be sufficient, it warned.
Meanwhile, an LNG tanker that loaded in Qatar early last month has sailed through the Strait of Hormuz and is signaling Pakistan as its next destination, the first visible exit of the country's super-chilled fuel via the waterway since July. A wider resumption of LNG flows from the Persian Gulf would bring relief to price-sensitive buyers, particularly in South Asia, amid shortages and power blackouts.
Dutch front-month futures, Europe's gas benchmark, rose 2.2% to €74.95 a megawatt-hour by 12:25 p.m. in Amsterdam.
Rising gas prices are also bolstering electricity costs, with gas-fired plants often setting power prices. That is particularly relevant for Germany, where fading solar output during the winter months will increase reliance on the country's fossil-fuel fleet. German power futures for 2027 climbed as high as €126.62 per megawatt-hour, their highest since October 2023, according to EEX data.
