#Natural gas..a warning of a "risk of shortage" next winter

 An analysis published by the "Oil Price" website, which specializes in energy and economic affairs, issued a warning of the risk of a "shortage" of natural gas quantities during the upcoming winter season.

He added that what we are witnessing now in the gas market, "we have not seen anything like it for several years", after years of cheap gas supplies.

The analysis attributes fears of a lack of gas supply to basic factors such as: lack of drilling and lack of investment in new sources of supply, in addition to: capital control by producers and a shift towards the allocation of capital for renewable energy.

He pointed out that the current reality of the gas markets was expected, as gas prices had tripled on an annual basis.

The analysis indicated that one of the causes of confusion in the gas market is the European trends, in relying more on clean energy, and considering carbon dioxide as an undesirable gas, as more reliance was placed on wind and solar energy to generate electricity instead of using gas.

During the summer of 2021, the demand for gas rose as wind energy was not enough to generate electricity, and this affected the meager gas supply around the world, according to a report published by the Wall Street Journal.

This caused a shock in electricity prices, which may occur during the winter season in Britain, where electricity prices have witnessed and will witness sharper increases.

Despite all this, the Europeans discouraged gas production by imposing carbon taxes.

It is expected that the sharp decline in production in the European region will redefine the energy landscape and prices, especially after reducing production in the Groningen field, which is highly dependent on the delivery of gas to the European continent.

Conditions in the United States may be better than in Europe, where the weekly gas storage report shows "we are still 8% below the average of the last five years."

At the same time, supplies have been reduced either due to a decline in shale drilling or closures due to weather events, some of which closed major wells to supply the required supplies.

All this points to a change in the energy landscape surrounding gas over the past year. Supplies are tight and producers are reluctant to allocate new capital for drilling, so the result will be higher gas prices in the future.