European natural gas prices continued their decline, reaching Thursday, the lowest level in two years, due to markets well supplied with comfortable stocks in Europe and rising temperatures that lead to a decline in demand.
At around 14:00 GMT, Dutch gas futures contracts (TTF), which is the European reference, were traded at 29.90 euros per megawatt hour, after reaching 29.85 euros per megawatt hour.
This price has not been recorded since June 2021.
And after falling to its lowest level in 23 months, it rose again, recording 30.25 euros.
“The market remains well supplied, and stock levels are well above average,” said Energy Denmark group.
The European gas price has fallen by more than 60 percent since the beginning of the year.
It had risen to record highs of 345 euros in March, shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year.
The price of 30 euros is still more than twice the price of 15 euros recorded in 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic shut down the global economy and weakened global demand for energy.
Morocco is one of the customers of European gas.
Morocco’s imports of liquefied gas from Spain through the Maghreb gas pipeline have risen to record levels, as it went from 60 gigawatt hours in June 2022 to 820 gigawatt hours last March, an increase of 1,200 percent.
Morocco has strengthened its purchases of gas from Spain since the crisis with Algeria, when the eastern neighbor decided at the end of 2021 not to renew the contract for the exploitation of the gas pipeline that supplies Spain with Algerian gas through Morocco, which is the same line that supplied Morocco with most of its gas needs.
According to figures issued by the Spanish government company Enagás, this growth in Morocco’s imports took place gradually over the past months, as in July 2022 172 gigawatt hours were imported, then 119 gigawatts in August, 123 gigawatts in September, 328 gigawatts in October, and 553 gigawatts. in November, 527 gigawatts in December, 536 gigawatts in January, and 680 gigawatts in February.
Gas, which Morocco buys from international markets, produces electricity at the only two combined-cycle plants in the country: Ain Beni Mathar near the Algerian border, and Tahadrat near Tangiers, in which Endesa owns a stake.
