[fuoqi]

It's spot prices, which:

1) Can change very fast, e.g. on potential strong China reopening or colder than usual winter.

2) Do not fully represent cost of long-term contracts.

Also, with reduced industrial output (especially in energy intensive production) you need less gas. If you try to return to the previous levels, the price will react sharply, thus making growth in those sectors difficult. Finally, a significant amount of electricity generation has migrated from gas to coal, which is not free of consequences...

[_0w8t]

Also spot prices reflect the storage availability. The storage will be filled by October according to the existing contracts. I.e. there is no much room to receive more gas if it will have to be brought to Europe in the next few months.

A really cold winter without Russian gas may bring the spot prices back to record levels as then the supply lines will be the bottleneck.

Long term Europe needs bigger storage to smooth price volatility.