The spot price of gas in Europe with the opening of trading on Wednesday, December 15, continued to rise amid a weak contribution of alternative energy sources, an increase in prices in competing markets and a more severe than previously expected weather forecast in the region, Interfax reports.

 On Wednesday morning, the price of the nearest (January) futures on TTF on the ICE Futures exchange reached 132.995 euros per MWh, that is, $1550 per thousand cubic meters.  In November, the «day ahead» contract was traded on TTF at an average of $945, in December - $1182 per thousand cubic meters.  Since the beginning of the year, the average contract value has reached $518.

 In Europe, the production of electricity from renewable sources has fallen sharply.  On Monday, the contribution of wind generation to electricity generation in Europe was only 10.1%, on Tuesday and even less – only 9.9% (with an average value of 15.6% in the week of December 6-12), according to data from the WindEurope association.

 The current level of gas reserves in underground storage facilities in Europe reached 61.9% of their maximum capacity (data as of Monday morning) – this is 16.8 percentage points below the average over the past five years, according to data from Gas Infrastructure Europe.