Closing post
And finally, here’s our energy correspondent Alex Lawson on the EU’s latest effort to tackle the energy crisis:
The EU has proposed a cap on “excessive and volatile” gas prices this winter as part of a package to protect consumers.
Brussels has put forward a new mechanism to control prices by blocking transactions above a certain level, which can be triggered “when needed”.
European policymakers are attempting to insulate households from the worst of the impact from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has sent wholesale gas prices soaring.
The package of measures, agreed by the EU commissioners on Sunday and announced on Tuesday, included emergency regulations to allow joint gas buying across the EU to negotiate better prices and provisions to permit greater cooperation between countries in a gas supply emergency.
EU leaders will discuss the proposals at a summit lthis week and if approved the cap could come into force this winter.
The European Commission has devised the plan to create a new benchmark for gas prices to better reflect the price of liquefied natural gas and de-link prices from the the main European gas exchange, the Title Transfer Facility (TTF) Dutch gas hub.
However, this scheme is expected to take time to implement, so the option to put a cap on prices will be introduced in the interim. It will block transactions from taking place on the TTF at a price higher than the “dynamic price limit”.
Here’s the full story:
Meanwhile in the markets, the pound has slipped to just above $1.13, down half a cent, as Liz Truss’s premiership hangs in the balance.
The latest from parliament is that Liz Truss is no longer publicly committed to defending the triple lock, under which pensions would rise by inflation or wages..
Here’s the rest of today’s news:
Encouragingly for Europe, and the UK, gas prices have dropped sharply today
The European wholesale contract for delivery next month has dropped by 13%, as has the UK wholesale contract.
Dutch natural gas prices for November Delivery just keep plunging, as storage sites get increasingly full pic.twitter.com/zV2PCy73Q5
— Joe Weisenthal (@TheStalwart) October 18, 2022
Prices are still higher than before the pandemic, but a lot lower than this summer as Russia was turning off gas suppliers.
Am not an energy guy, but latest collapse of UK Nat Gas wholesale price looks like great news! pic.twitter.com/Lpb76uwKC6
— Toby Nangle (@toby_n) October 18, 2022
The contract for delivery in the UK tomorrow has almost halved, to 30p per therm.
