TTF Above €100, Stocks Already Drawn Down

TTF, the European gas benchmark, broke through €100/MWh — roughly $34/MMBtu — and is heading for a monthly gain of 42%. Storage has flipped to net withdrawals while sites sit only 75% full. Fears of renewed hostilities between the United States and Iran, with repeated attacks in the Strait of Hormuz, are feeding the risk premium, while Brent trades around $117.58 a barrel.

Corridors Inherited From Russia Are Shut Down

Physical flow readings confirm the constraint. Mallnow (Yamal), VIP Waidhaus (Czech transit) and Baumgarten TAG show 0 kWh/d, both entry and exit, on 23 and 24 October. Supply therefore rests on other routes. On 23 October, Emden EPT1, entry point of the Norpipe pipeline, recorded 432.0 million kWh/d, and VIP TTF-THE-H received 510.8 million kWh/d at entry. Tarvisio, on the Austria-Italy axis, received 40.5 million.

A Spectacular Drop, to Be Read With Caution

The next day, these same points collapse. Emden falls to 127.7 million kWh/d (about -70%), Oberkappel at exit drops from 134.3 to 32.7 million (about -76%) and Tarvisio falls to 11.2 million (about -72%). Caution is warranted, however: the file does not say whether the 24th is complete or provisional, and it cites no technical or commercial cause. Zevenaar, on the Dutch side, shows no entry value on either date.

The Mechanism: Few Routes, Thin Cushion

When Russian transit flows are zero, security of supply depends on a handful of arteries, from Norway to the Dutch and Belgian hubs, and on LNG. With storage drawing down, every disruption to one of these sources, or every geopolitical tension, feeds straight into price for lack of substitute flows. Day-ahead prices on 23 October illustrate the fragmentation: €227.27/MWh in Switzerland, €157.93 in Portugal and €124.90 in the Czech Republic, against €33.90 in West Denmark and €23.07 in Finland — a spread close to ten to one. The data provided describe this gap without explaining it.

What Can Be Concluded

The picture is that of a structurally tight market: very high prices, storage below 75% and Russian corridors at zero. Physical flows confirm dependence on a small number of routes. Without history, without interconnection capacity and without confirmation that the 24 October data is final, however, nothing links the TTF rally to this one-off decline. The next readings will show whether this is a measurement glitch or a genuine tightening.

This article was written with the assistance of artificial intelligence and verified by our editorial team.