Thread by @faisalislam

NEW Kasyanov, @MKasyanov Putin’s first PM, when he brought Russia out of post Soviet transition financial chaos, tells Martha on @BBCr4today Central Bank sanctions mean rouble can’t be supported, now German ministers say ready to stop purchasing gas -means disaster for Russia

NEW UK wholesale gas price now back up to 397p a therm, close to freakish peak in Autumn, had settled below £2 before invasion, normally 60ishp. Pushes up avg price, if sustained further household bill rises in Autumn of hundreds of pounds, on top of record rise in next few weeks

If sustained at these levels, which seems unthinkable, avg bills would be well over £3000 - get to £3k with average price of 320p, I’m told - that would actually be a larger rise in Autumn than next month.

plausible tho now that rise in Autumn could be of same order as April

That would be millions more households unable to pay bills. Difference with Autumn can see underlying reason in conflict why prices would stay high for a period of weeks/ months. Would therefore expect Govt to be planning how to cope with further significant rise in Autumn.

NEW UK wholesale gas prices top £4 per therm again

NEW UK Wholesale gas prices top £4.50 a therm - a record…

Up £2 in 24 hours from already elevated levels.

Fallen back a little, but still at incredible levels above £4

… * prices reached £4.63 a therm, slightly below some of the intraday highs reached in December of £4.70… so just below the record. Still very very high.

Analysts Cornwall Insight were forecasting an Autumn price cap at £2,497 a year versus £1,970 now - so a further rise of £500 in October versus and on top of the £693 rise already announced for next month.

That was before today’s full spike to near record wholesale gas prices.

Martin is right, though I cant find his tweet now, that that is the potential cap expressed in £ for an average user… the cap is actually on the price of a unit used, so the actual bill would depend on that, and could be higher, for a high user.

This is the source for Kasyanov saying German Economy minister (Robert Habek) said Germany was ready to stop Russian gas exports - DW in Russian….

https://twitter.com/dw_russian/status/1498926580806021121?s=21

Official ministry twitter has it as “increasing independence from Russia” somewhat different, after German minister met US SoS Blinken.

US thinking for weeks about how to help Europe with alternatives to Russian gas, lobbying the Qataris & Japanese

https://twitter.com/bmwk/status/1498943384693710851?s=21

NEW
UK Russia Sanctions banning trade with Central Bank of Russia in force 5pm last night

A person must not provide financial services to * —
(a)for purpose of foreign exchange reserve and asset management;…
* Central Bank of the Russian Federation,

legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2022/205/…

NEW

Market analysts saying gas price spike partially caused by uncertainty over shipments of Russian LNG to the UK, after ban on Russian ships.

33 cargos of Russian LNG from Yamal project last year - that is the 4% of our supply from Russia.

Also oil spike pushes gas higher.

Logged in to check the price of the London listing of Sberbank and Gazprom, which were down 97%, and 92% respectively over past two weeks.

Perhaps a bit of a bounceback?

But no, they are both down another 93% just today…

Pennystocks now.

Check out Sberbank, Russia’s biggest bank, stock chart in London…

Was $15 a share on 16th Feb.
Opened today at $2.50.

Now worth one and a half cents, basically worthless.

Although someone brave piled in and bought for $1 after their breakfast.

Russian state gas giant & Champions League sponsor Gazprom, whose boss told me once would be the most valuable company in the world, currently trading at 5 cents on London Stock Exchange… $9 a fortnight ago.

Basically AMC-style meme stock now.