European Gas Prices Slip 10% On Faulty Data

Gas prices in Europe took a dive on Wednesday as faulty data suggested that Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline had started flowing.

In a digital age that is rather reliant on all sorts of data, commodity pricing can be at the mercy of data accuracy.

That data failed the nat gas market on Wednesday, when Germany’s natural gas infrastructure operator Gascade erroneously reported data that suggested gas had already started flowing from the highly contentious Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

Construction on Nord Stream is indeed nearing completion, but gas has not started flowing.

Gascade confirmed the error on Wednesday, saying that gas is not yet flowing in the pipeline that will run from Russia to Germany. Russia insists that gas will be flowing through the pipeline by the end of this year.

According to data from the ICE London stock exchange cited by Sputnik, the price drop began at 13:00 GMT and continued for 2.5 hours, after which the price stabilized.

September futures on Dutch TTF Index fell from $575 per tcm to $514 tcm—a 10% loss—before rebounding to $550 per tcm sometime later.

In July, Washington gave up on sanctioning the pipeline—and its sanctions on anyone involved in the construction of the pipeline—when it reached a deal with Germany over the pipeline with its “Joint Statement of the United States and Germany on Support for Ukraine, European Energy Security, and our Climate Goals.”

Germany is in dire need of additional gas flows from Russia as it tries to wean itself off of coal-fired power and nuclear power plants as it looks to embrace a net-zero future.