The energy sector continues to be under pressure both nationally and internationally. On the gas front, Gazprom today cut off the flow of Moscow through the pipeline Nord Stream 1 for a three-day extraordinary maintenance, but this only increases fears about a total stop in the supply of Russian gas to Europe (before today’s stop, flows were 20% of the total). It is evident that Moscow has been using gas for several months now as a weapon of war against Western sanctions and recently the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyencalling on member states to cut gas consumption by 15%, said Europe must be ready for a potential total shutdown of Russian gas.
The countries of the Old Continent are in great difficulty due to this energy crisis which in the most dramatic case could force thousands of European companies to block or severely limit their production activities with very strong repercussions on the socio-economic stability of the Old Continent. This climate of uncertainty produces its harmful effects on the price of gas which continues to remain highly high and volatile.
Within two months, the gas Ttf (benchmark europeo), as we can see from the September future chart, it has gone from around 80 € / Mwh at the beginning of June to the current one 270 €/Mwh with a frightening increase of over 240%. This logically affects the trend in the price of electricity which in Italy reached its maximum peak in August 2022 when the Pun (Single National Price) reached € 0.7064 / kWh, an increase of over 1000%. compared to € 0.061 / kWh recorded in March 2021.
Profits boom for the energy giants
If on the one hand the bills are becoming increasingly heavy for families and businesses, on the other hand, the rise in the price of gas and oil is giving a strong boost to the accounts of energy companies and how are the European giants behaving to face the energy emergency? In Italy Eni closed a very positive six-month period, with an adjusted net profit that rose more than six times (7.08 billion euros) compared to the first half of 2021. The group led by CEO Claudio Descalzi is on the stock exchange since the beginning of the year, despite the recent rebound, still below par (-0.57%), widely outperforming the Ftse Mib index (-19.68% Ytd) but underperforming the EuroStoxx Energy index which has risen by more than 10%. The Six-legged Dog group is moving to implement the ambitious goal of making Italy independent from Russian gas by 2024 and this also thanks to the development of agreements to increase gas supplies from Algeria, Egypt and Congo. Furthermore, Eni is also investing in its green subsidiary, Plenitude.
Full of revenues also for Enel which in the first half of 2022 recorded an increase in revenues of + 85.3% compared to the same period of 2021 and this thanks to the “greater quantities of electricity and gas sold at increasing average prices and the greater quantities of electricity produced” . Despite the large profits, Enel is still suffering on the stock market, finding itself at € 4.78, with a decrease of 32% since the beginning of the year.
Higher gas sales volumes also boosted revenues by Edisonone of the oldest European energy companies, which closed the first six months of 2022 with 13.2 billion euros in revenues and 201 million in net profit.
Always with reference to the Italian market and always thanks to the increase in the prices of energy raw materials, the Lombard A2A recorded an increase of + 141.5% in revenues, which rose to 9.79 billion euros. But also Terna e Snamboth controlled by CDP and which manage the main energy infrastructures of our country also recorded an increase in profits and revenues.
Among the major European utilities there was also a boom in revenues Shell which more than doubled its profits compared to a year ago and CEO Van Beurden reiterated that the group will continue to invest in energy security and the energy transition.
Despite the many elements of concern in recent days, the price of gas, while remaining historically very high, has undergone a significant decrease and is currently moving in the area of € 246 / Mwh, -20.7% from the all-time high reached with the session. of 26 August in which it reached over 330 € / Mwh. The recent decline was favored by the announcement by Germany that it had reached a good level of filling of gas storages, as well as the increasingly frequent voices in favor of the price cap hypothesis, a European ceiling on gas prices.