the price of gas italia bills drops when and why

Gas bills are expected to drop over the next few months. On the virtual market in Amsterdam, where this raw material is traded, the price of gas has fallen below 100 euros per megawatt hour (MWh), a level not seen for months.

“The real news is that the price of gas has dropped below 100 euros and therefore the bills will stop rising. On the contrary, a reduction is expected in the coming months”, indicates the president of Nomisma Energia, Davide Tabarelli. “In Italy, but also in Europe – adds Tabarelli – we should create more gas extraction and energy production systems. To see importing LNG from Texas (the liquefied gas to be regasified, editor’s note) is absurd. The Netherlands should ask Norway to sell us gas at a lower price. Let’s go back to Libya, which is full of gas. »

Photo Ansa / Matteo Coin

“We are heading towards rationing, everyone knows that,” Tabarelli stresses, emphasizing a question of which there is hardly any trace in the public debate. “We can only do it if it’s going to be hot, but it’s winter,” he says. In any event, a further drop in natural gas prices is underway at TTF Amsterdam. The Title Transfer Facility is a virtual market for the exchange of natural gas, which is based in the Netherlands. It is one of the main reference markets for gas trading throughout Europe.

Gas, because the price is falling

Well, at the TTF in Amsterdam, gas futures for November fell 14.9% to 96.65 euros per megawatt hour (MWh), confirming the level of last June 14. Methane gas prices in London fell 13%, to 177.5 cents per Mbtu, the British thermal unit, the unit of energy measurement, used in the United States and the United Kingdom. To drive down prices, inventory levels reached 93.4% of European Union inventories with 1040.79 TWh (terawatt hours) of reserves. But also milder than average climatic temperatures in October across the continent. And, in the future, measures to contain gas prices, perhaps not excluding a form of price cap: a cap on the prices of imports from outside the EU.

The Porto Viro regasification terminal (Rovigo), in an archive image. Photo Ansa / Davide Bolzoni

Codacons: “Strangled Families”

In any case, beware: the hypothesis of a gradual drop in the price of gas in the bill in the coming months does not make it easy to get excited. Overall, indeed, expensive energy (gas plus electricity) will still weigh on Italians’ bills for 4,700 euros per family in 2023. The Codacons, who made these calculations in a study, sounded the alarm bells these last days. To understand the gravity of the current crisis, consider that at least 4.7 million Italians have already postponed the payment of one or more bills. The figure emerges from a survey commissioned by Facile.it.

The sting in condominiums

And defaulters aren’t just citizens who fall behind on their gas and electricity payments. At least 3 million Italians, in fact, would also have skipped one or more condominium slices of their housing. “Condominium adjustments are coming for the terrible energy costs,” Confindustria president Carlo Bonomi said.

Carlo Bonomi, at the head of the industrialists. Photo Ansa / Alessandro Di Marco

The emergency affects companies but also households, with an increase in poverty and a strong concern for the well-being of families. The president of the ABI, the Italian Banking Association, Antonio Patuelli, is also calling for action at national and European level to reduce maturities and extend loan and mortgage maturities. “The EU – he said – should allow banks to have a moratorium on businesses and families, to give them more time to recover economically and to meet their commitments”.