Europe’s benchmark natural gas prices jumped on Tuesday morning in Amsterdam as the Middle East crisis remains a major supply shock amid the European race against time to stock up for the winter.
The front-month price at the Dutch Title Transfer Facility (TTF), the benchmark for Europe’s gas trading, rose by 2% as of 8.40 a.m. Amsterdam time, to hit the highest level since the 2022-2023 crisis.
At $86.90 (74.820 euros) per megawatt-hour (MWh), the price now exceeds the January 2023 levels, when Europe faced the first winter without most of the Russian pipeline gas supply.
Europe’s gas prices last week booked their fourth consecutive weekly gain as the re-escalation in the Middle East dampened hopes that LNG flows from the Strait of Hormuz could normalize soon.
European gas prices have rallied in recent weeks as gas storage sites across Europe are less than 70% full compared to 82% for this time of year in 2025 and a five-year average of above 80%.
Europe is heading into winter with one of the lowest levels of gas in storage in the past two decades as the war in the Middle East crippled LNG supply from Qatar, sent gas and LNG prices in Europe and Asia skyrocketing, and intensified competition for readily available global LNG cargoes that don’t need to cross geopolitically charged chokepoints.
“The potential for a global ‘fight for fuel’ is there, particularly in a colder winter,” Go Katayama, principal insight analyst for LNG at intelligence firm Kpler, told Bloomberg last week.
In a sign of intensifying competition, Asia’s spot LNG price surged last week to the highest level since 2022.
“European and Asian gas prices have surged as the market adjusts to a more prolonged disruption to LNG supply,” analysts at Timera Energy wrote in a note earlier this week.
“Europe is pricing up to outcompete Asia for marginal LNG.”
By Michael Kern for Oilprice.com
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