Let's look at the EU gas situation (ex Serbia, Ukraine, Norway, CH). Overall, the seasonal %-fill for EU members (below) is lowest in a decade (yellow line). That will not change as we show below. Train left the station.
Meanwhile, the withdrawals of natural gas are coming in seasonally the earliest in a decade! Again, yellow line. If that trajetory (in GWh/d) remains, EU gas prices will hit record soon again. IMHO, a likely. We will see.
So is the gas coming overproportionally in? Answer: no, overall injection rate (in GWh/d) is in fact seasonally low. Only 2011 & 2012 were lower. However, ...
back in 2011 & 2012 etc., EU used a lot less natural gas (i.e. working gas volume).
Were is the gas seasonally missing? Answer: Austria, Germany (both due to Gazprom), the Netherlands but also Italy. France? Fine, after all they are mainly using nuclear energy :-). Below the Netherlands!
Here is Austria: 56% is the lowest. Only Ukraine (which is gas starved geopolitically by Russia) has less. Austria matters a lot. With Baumgarten, it is gas hub for Central & Eastern Europe (CEE) or 80 million people. Poland looks fine (96%), but rest is low, between 75-86%.
Denmark is also low. Not dramatic at 81% but worth mentioning because it was one of the reasons why the EU runs low on gas. Danish offshore wind farms did not deliver this summer as expected. It just had a below wind season. Period.
Germany is EU's largest gas consumer. It's fill % (below) is seasonally lowest in 10 years. Gazprom has not filled its German "Gazprom storage". I am not competent to speculate why. Is it geopolitics or simply a gas production issue at Gazprom? More insight welcome!
Since the spike in EU gas prices, VVP mentioned he will inject come 9 Nov. One measure is the injection point. Data goes back to 2014. Never been so low! Why? The NS2 pipeline approval in Germany? Not sure it is that easy.
I just don't see the fix in the coming weeks looking at seasonal injection patterns (in GWh/d). Does not make sense to suddenly have gas that is seasonally needed (Russian winter). But maybe I am wrong. Maybe Gazprom can inject 40TWh at will. Certainly no Russian gas expert.
If they can, they should start asap because the weather forecast is for a cold December in Germany. That will not help restrain withdrawal rates. In sum, I don't see the fix for EU gas prices. We will see.
More concretely, Iran likely enriched some 250kg of HEU stockpiles since 2021. Worse, it also said to adds significant new capacities.
That material so far could quickly be turned into the fuel for the equivalent of 10 bombs, should Iran’s leadership take the political decision to pursue weapons, according to Bloomberg.
Here is my theory how the major incident - a so called blackout - occurred at 12:30 CET today in the power system of Spain & Portugal:
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At the time of the incident, Spain and Portugal operated the grid at very high renewables share of about 66% - i.e solar (55%) and wind (11%; eolica)
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While this isn’t unusual for Spain, it does mean that the grid operates with little inertia (resistance to change) during such time. The grid is therefore vulnerable to external effects…!
On this platform, certain perma bulls keep pushing a bullish crude narrative based on relative U.S. inventories—day after day, for three years now.
Their logic: Total U.S. crude inventories (including the SPR) are at 838 million barrels (orange line), 200 million barrels below the 10-year average → bullish!
Yet, inventories keep falling, and prices remain stuck in a range. Clearly, they are wrong.
1/9 @UrbanKaoboy @Iris62655179 @BrentRuditLeo
The problem with their logic?
a) The U.S. is no longer the marginal importer of crude oil—Asia is (or was).
b) U.S. inventories are artificially high on a 10-year average due to the shale boom, which took off in 2014. Shale growth and Covid distort the data, keeping inventories (ex SPR) elevated. So any 5- or 10-year comparison is meaningless—period.
2/n US Crude Oil Inventory ex SPR
Including SPRs, the picture looks more normalised - but not tight. But does the US really need 700mb of strategic reserves in 2025? I don't think so.
Yesterday, I shared a few thoughts that I’d like to expand on, especially given how volatile the current tariff landscape under this admin has become.
Navigating it isn’t just difficult—it’s nearly impossible to avoid missteps. Hopefully some traders will expand on my thoughts...
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What do we know?
As at 23 March 2025, Comex copper price in New York is trading at 14% premium to LME in London. Buying a tonne of copper in NY costs $11,213 versus 9,842 in London, $1,371 per tonne more than in London.
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Why is that? Because of tariff FEARS, not tariffs.
Traders are hedging future risk of potential tariffs on all forms of the raw material, such as cathodes, concentrates, ores, and even scrap. But there aren't such tariffs in place for copper yet (unlike alumnium).
The current Comex price action in the U.S. is basically a Trump tariff trade mirage and is otherwise as misleading of fundaments as the May 2024 price action of which I warned on multiple occasions.
1/n $/pound
In May 2024 however, U.S. price action was more in synch with London. But it didn't reflect weak Chinese housing & construction fundamentals which has been 15-30% of GLOBAL copper use for the past two decades. Today, U.S. prices trade as if borders close tomorrow.
2/n Comex - LME arb in $/t
Unlike May 2024, copper blue chips like $FCX, however, do not buy the rally. So at least it seems that the equity market understands the tariff aspect of the copper price mirage.
In this episode, we discuss China's 2nd of 5 economic paths it can follow.
This episode will also focus on Xi the leader. To understand Xi means to better understand China's economic path forward.
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Can China replace malinvestment with more consumption?
Answer: Maybe a little bit & over a long time frame, but President Xi does not want to focus on this path. Instead, he wants to implement his socialist utopia.
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Yes, China’s rising entrepreneurs were welcomed by the Communist Party for at least two decades. But all of that is in reverse.
Under Xi Jinping, China has moved full circle: from low growth & low freedom in the pre-reform era back towards something similar today.