Although the Nord Stream pipeline has "hole", it does not affect Germany's natural gas reserves at present. At least in the past few days, the natural gas price has dropped to the lowest price in more than two months. According to the latest opening of Dutch TTF natural gas futures index (which represents European natural gas futures), natural gas is currently down 6%, from 160 EUR per MWh to 155 EUR per MWh. The last time the price rose was because the maintenance of Beixi No. 1 at the end of August, the price of natural gas soared, with natural gas at that time of 311 euros per megawatt-hour.
Regarding the decline in natural gas prices, relevant people said that it was because Russia announced that it would continue to transport natural gas to Italy through Austria , which temporarily alleviated the tight supply of the natural gas market.
At the same time, German experts believe that in the long run, natural gas prices will also be temporarily suspended. Commerzbank Commodity experts published an analysis report, citing the latest report from the International Energy Agency, which said it could alleviate public concerns about bottlenecks in winter natural gas supply. International Energy Agency believes that if Russia completely shuts down natural gas supply, if the EU countries do not take energy-saving measures, the EU's gas storage facilities will drop to a critical value of 5% of the gas storage capacity; but once energy saving, 9% of the natural gas use can save gas storage capacity reach 25%. simply means that EU countries used too much before, so they now save some use. Even if Russia completely stops supplying natural gas, the saved natural gas can be used.
The above figure is the average value of German gas storage in recent years. The blue line is the gas storage value this year. According to the upward trend of this blue line, experts believe that if the natural gas consumption is reduced by 13%, it can reach 33% of the reserves.
Even if experts are optimistic about natural gas reserves, the price of natural gas is still very high for the public and must be high. The reason for the high price is the market trend on the one hand; on the other hand, if the price of natural gas is low, people will use natural gas as before, and their reserves will not be enough (that is, people who think they are expensive can save a lot by using less natural gas).
According to Check24 comparison, the average price of natural gas in the same period last year was only 62 euros per megawatt-hour. This year, the natural gas price tripled to 191 euros per megawatt-hour. Coupled with the chain reaction, electricity prices and prices are also soaring, and the pressure is all coming to the people.
In order to relieve the pressure, the German federal government decided to reduce the value-added tax on natural gas from October 1, from 19% to 7%. The cost of natural gas for households using 20,000 kilowatt-hours can be reduced by 306 euros, and the cost of households using 5,000 kilowatt-hours can be reduced by 87 euros.
But natural gas value-added tax is not reduced in vain, and it is said that pressure comes to the people. Although reduces VAT, it has to pay two surcharges: gas storage tax and energy control tax (die Gasspeicher- und die Regelenergieumlage). gas storage tax is easy to understand. Controlling energy refers to maintaining the stability of the entire gas system's inlet and outflow, and then the people will bear the costs for this. The gas storage tax is 59 cents per megawatt-hour, and the energy storage tax is 5.7 euros per megawatt-hour. The bill above
can be calculated in this way. For a standard household with a consumption of 20,000 kilowatt-hours (here is a unit of kilowatt-hours), the energy storage tax requires 114 euros, and the gas storage tax is 12 euros, totaling 126 euros, and the value-added tax is reduced by 306 euros, totaling 180 euros. The price is less, but not less.
German media said that for consumers, the current measures and price slowdown are just a drop in the bucket, and are still very high compared to historical prices.
Back to the above expert believes that can alleviate the people's concerns about the bottleneck of natural gas supply in winter. roughly means: I have no problem with supply, can you afford it? That's your problem.
