Europe’s benchmark natural gas prices were headed on Friday for their largest monthly gain since 2023 as cold snaps in January boosted heating and power demand and fast-draining storage sites fueled a market rally.
The front-month Dutch TTF Natural Gas Futures, the benchmark for Europe’s gas trading, were on track for a 38% monthly gain on Friday, the biggest advance in one month since the summer of 2023, when a supply crunch sent prices skyrocketing.
On Friday morning in Amsterdam, the benchmark price was 1.3% higher on the day, at $46.59 (39.085 euros) per megawatt-hour (MWh). To compare, the price was $34.60 (29 euros) per MWh at the beginning of January.
With cold spells throughout January, including the big freeze in the United States that briefly reduced feedgas flows to the U.S. LNG export plants, traders have sharply turned bullish on European gas.
Speculators and fund managers started to aggressively buy the market, shifting from a net short of 55.1 TWh to a net long of 57.7 TWh over the reporting week to January 20, Warren Patterson, head of commodities strategy at ING, wrote in a note last week.
To further fuel the price rally, below-average winter temperatures are driving the fastest pace of withdrawals from natural gas storage in Europe in five years, as heating demand is rising.
In addition, global gas benchmark prices have jumped in recent weeks as Arctic weather has gripped most of the northern hemisphere, including the United States and Asia.
European prices have also rallied in the past two days due to the escalating U.S.-Iran rhetoric.
On Thursday alone, the TTF price jumped by 4%.
“Escalation between the US and Iran puts a significant portion of LNG supply at risk. Qatar, the second-largest exporter, ships volumes through the Strait of Hormuz,” ING commodities strategists said on Friday, adding that Qatar accounted for about 19% of global LNG exports in 2025.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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