Engie VP: little can be done on gas prices

Didier Holleaux, Executive Vice President of French utilities company Engie and president of the European Gas Industry Association said that the gas crisis in Europe cannot be blamed on Russia alone, adding that little can be done. 

“There is nothing you can do in the short term, gas industry is a long term industry, so what you have not done in the past years, you cannot do now just to create new supply,” he told reporters during the Gastech conference in Dubai.

“We are worried of the shortage of the gas which we currently see may maintain prices on the high level. We are trying to manage as well as we can,” adding that “the market will decide [the prices]." “We hope the start of the winter will not be too cold in the northern hemisphere. Otherwise, we are in trouble.”

A shortage in supply of liquefied natural gas to Europe has increased prices leading to higher utilities prices. The shortage has been due to an increase of supply heading towards Asian countries that has also began opening their economies after the lockdown.

Russia has been flowing less gas to Europe, as the country is overwhelmed with demand both from abroad and in Russia, where it needs to refill storage sites that has been depleted due to the usage last winter [as countries were in lockdown].

“The problem now with Gazprom today is not so much shortage of pipes as much as shortage of supply to fill up their own storage," he explained, without confirming whether he asked for more supply or not from the Russian company.

He added that Engie has not asked the French government for assistance, “it is not our task, there are many players in the game and at the end it is the government who must decide what they want to do.”