Closing summary
With European stock markets closed, here’s a recap of the main events today.
Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has pushed back against calls to ban Russian oil and gas imports as part of western sanctions against Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.
Scholz cautioned that such a move could put Europe’s energy security at risk, and that energy imports from Russia were currently essential to citizens’ daily lives.
Scholz statement came after the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said on Sunday that the US was talking to its European allies about banning Russian oil imports.
Blinken’s comments triggered a dramatic surge in oil prices overnight, with Brent crude up 18% at one stage to hit $139 per barrel, the highest in 14 years.
It has since dipped back but is still around $125 per barrel, up from below $80 at the start of this year.
The price of wholesale gas also leapt alarmingly today, with the UK contract for delivery next month hittinga record of 800p per therm, compared to typical prices below 50p/therm a year ago.
Gas prices closed about 10% higher tonight around 500p, a level that would intensify the cost-of-living crisis gripping households and businesses.
European stock markets racked up fresh losses, as the Ukraine war continued to hammer share prices. Germany’s DAX shed another 2%, ending in a bear market – over 20% below its record high in January.
In London, the FTSE 100 fell another 0.4%, with oil producers and miners rallying, but banks, travel companies, retailers and consumer goods makers all under renewed pressure.
Companies continued to cut ties with Russia. All four of the UK’s big accountancy firms have now cut off businesses in Russia and Belarus, with EY and Deloitte joining KPMG and PwC in legally separating their operations.
The Conservative peer Greg Barker has resigned as chairman of EN+, the mining company part-owned by the sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
Three more Russian billionaires have resigned from the board of the $22bn (£17bn) investment firm LetterOne after the EU imposed sanctions on its two biggest shareholders.
Here are more of today’s stories:
We’ll be back tomorrow. Goodnight, GW.
Updated
The European Union is in the grip of a “growing gas crisis” aggravated by its dependency on Russia, Brussels will warn, as it makes a further push for energy savings and a switch to renewable power.
According to a draft paper on EU energy prices, which is due to be published on Tuesday, and which has been seen by the Guardian:
Gas and electricity prices will remain high and volatile until at least 2023. Compared to the outlook of last autumn, the situation has deteriorated.
Along with the rest of the world, the EU has been grappling with soaring energy prices for months, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has provoked soul searching about Europe’s gas dependency.
The union imports 40% of its gas from Russia, a figure unchanged in more than 15 years despite repeated gas crises triggered by Moscow cutting off supplies.
The policy paper also confirms that EU competition authorities are investigating the Russian state energy company Gazprom for its “unusual business behaviour”. The Russian company’s EU storage facilities are only 16% full, compared with 44% for non-Gazprom storage, raising suspicions that the Kremlin is using gas as a geopolitical tool.
The European Union is in the grip of a “growing gas crisis” aggravated by its dependency on Russia, the European Commission will say in a paper out on Tuesday. A line that could have been written many times in the last 15 years or so.https://t.co/bovhehOD71
— Jennifer Rankin (@JenniferMerode) March 7, 2022
