EU Gas Prices Struggle to Balance Supply Risk and Short-Term Oversupply

European natural gas markets are struggling to balance between short-term oversupply and possible supply risks, MET Group chief executive, Gyorgy Vargha, told Argus.

• "European gas markets are struggling between this sense of short-term oversupply if nothing adverse happens, and a number of risk events and trying to price these risks," which is "extremely difficult", Vargha said.
• Earlier this month, markets were talking about oversupply but this has changed, after the shutdown of the Balticconnector pipeline, fears about Egyptian LNG exports, Bulgarian transit risks and cold weather, Vargha added.
• "Europe is still very much dependent on individual country pipeline gas supplies," Vargha said, adding that there is a need in Europe for more longer-term supply contracts, but this could be "difficult" for individual private firms on a standalone basis, Vargha said.