What is moving the price right now?

Gas has made the jump the market has been preparing for weeks. The TTF front month closed at 79.52 EUR/MWh on 11 September, up 35.4 percent on 11 August and up 146.0 percent on the same day last year. On 10 September Bloomberg described European gas as near its highest level in three years while the Iran war drags on. The scale is the point: three months ago the same contract stood at 49.69 EUR/MWh.

The reason is a simple coincidence of two things. Europe has to inject into storage, and the strait through which Qatari LNG ships is blocked. For the gas day ending 13 September, EU storage stood at 68.04 percent and German storage at 55.60 percent (GIE AGSI). Germany's national target is around 70 percent by 1 November, a good 14 percentage points in six weeks, in a market where every additional cargo has to be won from Asian buyers.

The legal framework belongs here correctly stated, because our English edition abbreviated it last time. The EU storage target remains 90 percent. However, a standing margin of 10 percentage points applies, so 80 percent counts as compliance, and member states may reach the target any time between 1 October and 1 December rather than on a fixed date; in difficult market conditions the Commission can grant a further 5 percentage points. The regime runs to 31 December 2027. In practice: missing the target is legally cushioned, the physical tightness is not.

Supply offers little relief. Norwegian deliveries stood at 291.6 million cubic metres a day on 11 September, around 1.5 percent below the previous day, with about 30 million cubic metres a day under maintenance into late September. Russian gas now arrives effectively only via TurkStream, and there it is stable: 51.9 million cubic metres a day in August, up 3 percent year on year, and 11.9 billion cubic metres from January to August. That remainder has an expiry date: on 26 January 2026 the Council of the EU adopted the stepwise import ban, LNG from the start of 2027 and pipeline gas from autumn 2027, with penalties of at least 40 million EUR or 3.5 percent of global annual turnover for breaches.

Demand is easing, but too slowly. In its third-quarter Gas Market Report the IEA expects European consumption to fall by more than 2 percent in 2026, driven by stronger renewables output and exactly these high prices; in the first half, OECD Europe consumption ran around 0.5 percent below the prior year. New LNG supply, meanwhile, arrives only at the end of the decade: since March 2026, CP2 Phase 2 (40 billion cubic metres a year, operations from the second half of 2030), Delfin LNG (6 billion cubic metres, from 2030) and Commonwealth LNG (13 billion cubic metres, from 2030) have reached final investment decision. None of that helps this winter.

On the cost side for German consumers, the gas storage levy has at least been abolished since 1 January 2026; the federal government closed the account gap with around 3.4 billion EUR from the Climate and Transformation Fund, worth more than 3 billion EUR a year in relief.

What we watch: the weekly injection rate against Germany's 70 percent path, transit counts through the strait as an LNG indicator, the start of the heating season, and member states' diversification plans ahead of the LNG import ban at the turn of the year.

What does this mean for procurement in Europe?

The tranche question has been decided, and it has been decided against waiting. Anyone who waited at the end of August for the triggers we named then, a TTF pullback below 60 EUR/MWh or an implemented corridor agreement, received neither and is paying 35 percent more. For the remaining unhedged share the logic now reverses: in a market that has not yet fully priced winter tightness, staged cover is the lower-risk choice over staying fully open.

Use the storage mechanics as a timetable, not as a mood. Germany has to move from 55.60 percent to around 70 percent by 1 November, and injection runs against Asian competition. That buying power is in the market until early November and supports every pullback. If you have flexibility, place procurement windows deliberately after 1 December, the end of the European compliance window, rather than buying into the injection phase.

Price the import ban into every contract term that runs past the turn of the year. Russian LNG is banned from the start of 2027 and pipeline gas from autumn 2027, with substantial penalties. Have your supplier disclose the origin structure of its portfolio for delivery years 2027 and 2028, and anchor an adjustment clause for the case where it has to replace volumes. This is not a political topic, it is a volume risk inside your contract.

Strip the abolished gas storage levy out of older quotes. It has not applied since 1 January 2026. Offers and price sheets still carrying it as a line item are out of date, and relief worth more than 3 billion EUR a year belongs with the consumer, not in the supplier's margin.

Have load flexibility ready and price it. Interruptible load, fuel-switching options and moving energy-intensive steps out of expensive windows are no longer side topics at 79.52 EUR/MWh; they are the cheapest available alternative to fixing at a three-year high.