European gas prices surge on EU energy plan - ING

European natural gas prices displayed plenty of strength yesterday, ING's commodity experts Ewa Manthey and Warren Patterson note.

EU to ban new Russian gas contracts by 2025

"The Title Transfer Facility (TTF) rallied 5.5%, its largest daily increase since mid-March. The move was driven by the EU's plan to phase out Russian gas imports by the end of 2027. This includes phasing out long-term gas contracts by the end of 2027."

"More importantly, the plan includes banning all new contracts and ending existing spot contracts by the end of 2025. The EU believes these measures will cut Russian gas flows to the EU by one-third by the end of the year. Further details are expected next month."

"Meanwhile, reports that power flows to the Freeport LNG export terminal in the US stopped suggest a production disruption at the 20bcm export plant. This could provide some further support to European gas prices in the immediate term, depending on the duration of the outage."