Gas use falls to fresh lows in Europe's main gas trading hub
The Title Transfer Facility in the Netherlands establishes the main benchmark natural gas price for most of Europe, and the Netherlands' extensive pipeline networks and central location give it insight into gas supply and demand trends.
The Netherlands itself has historically been a heavy gas consumer, and from 2000 to 2020 relied on natural gas for well over half of its utility electricity supplies, according to energy thinktank Ember.
However, since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Dutch utilities have aggressively slashed natural gas use, and over the first half of 2025 gas power plants supplied only a third of the country's electricity.
For major natural gas producers and exporters such as the United States, Russia and Qatar, the rapid and sustained cuts to gas use by a formerly integral gas consumer are cause for alarm, as it may herald further cuts for Europe as a whole.
Despite its relatively small size and population, the Netherlands wields considerable influence regionally and globally.
The country's massive port facilities around Rotterdam are the main entry and exit points for crude oil, refined products, crops and many consumer goods into and out of Europe.
The Netherlands is also home to a large high-tech industry and several multi-national corporations which rely on the country's strong infrastructure and global connections.
The country's strategic importance is reflected in the status of the Dutch government, which is highly influential within the European parliament and plays a key role in shaping regional policies on trade, agriculture and finance.
Dutch utilities have also been leaders in adopting clean energy supplies, despite once being home of the headquarters of oil and gas major Shell (SHEL.L), opens new tab.
Between 2022 and 2024, electricity production from clean power supplies jumped by 27% in the Netherlands compared to a 16% rise in clean power output within the European Union over the same period, Ember data shows.
That outsized growth was driven by a 57% jump in wind power and a 34% rise in solar power electricity generation.
That aggressive increase in renewable energy sources in turn changed the balance of the country's electricity generation mix.
Until 2023, the country was primarily powered by fossil fuels, but since then clean energy sources have become the primary fuels for electricity generation and so far in 2025 have generated 57% of the country's electricity.
Despite the switches, electricity supplies scaled record highs in 2024 to ensure that the country's electricity output kept up with demand needs.
Wholesale power prices in the Netherlands have also remained competitive within Europe as the Dutch power system cut back on gas use and added clean power output, and so far in 2025 have averaged slightly less than those of Germany.
Over the first half of 2025, Dutch wholesale spot power prices have averaged around 90 euros per megawatt hour, according to LSEG.
That price is roughly a third more than those in nuclear-powered France, but is lower than the average prices recorded in several other European nations including Italy and most of Eastern Europe.
The fact that Dutch power costs have remained in line with the regional average despite sustained reductions to fossil fuel use in electricity generation will likely influence the energy planning of other nations in the region.
The successful transition from fossil fuels being the main pillar of the country's electricity system until 2022 to a more minor role in 2025 could be seen as a blueprint for other utility networks also keen to cut back on fossil fuel use.
And given the country's prowess in rolling out clean energy supplies, Dutch firms with expertise in offshore wind, solar systems and batteries are collaborating with other regional utilities to lift clean power output in other countries.
Dutch firms are also pioneering the deployment of green energy to produce green hydrogen, which regional industries are hoping will help decarbonise their power needs and further reduce regional reliance on fossil fuels.
All together, the Netherlands has generated strong momentum in its clean-energy push, which looks liable to extend well beyond its national borders and could result in further Europe-wide cuts to gas consumption in the years ahead.
The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters.
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Reuters
21 minutes ago
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UK inflation heat puts Bank of England back in the spotlight
LONDON, Aug 20 (Reuters) - British inflation looks set to hit 4% next month, double the Bank of England's target and a level likely to add to nervousness at the central bank about the risk of price growth getting stuck at a stubbornly high rate. Consumer prices climbed by 3.8% in July, data showed on Wednesday, the fastest annual rise for a Group of Seven economy and approaching the BoE's forecast of a 4% peak in September. While below the four-decade high of 11.1% reached in October 2022, when energy prices were surging after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, July's reading was the strongest in 18 months. By comparison, U.S. inflation held at 2.7% in July and in the euro zone it is expected to stay around 2%. British inflation has been above the BoE's 2% target almost constantly since May 2021. Little wonder then that the central bank - which saw its standing fall in the eyes of the public when inflation jumped in 2022 - has suggested that its already gradual run of interest rate reductions might slow, even with the jobs market weakening. That would be a blow to Prime Minister Keir Starmer and finance minister Rachel Reeves who are seeking to speed up Britain's slow-moving economy. They have pointed to the five rate cuts since they came into office as a sign of progress. The BoE's quarter-point cut to its benchmark rate on August 7 was opposed by almost half of its monetary policymakers. One of them, Catherine Mann, pointed in March to research in the United States showing that public attentiveness to inflation doubles when price growth hits 4%. The research, by Oliver Pfaeuti, a University of Texas assistant professor, found the increased U.S. public awareness of inflation "substantially amplified the already inflationary supply shocks and rendered inflation more persistent". Thomas Pugh, chief economist at accountancy firm RSM UK, said inflation at 4% was probably not an automatic trigger for long-lasting economic damage but "there is some pretty good evidence that consumers and businesses are paying a lot more attention to inflation". He noted that September's data would be used to set rail fares and student loan repayments and by some pension schemes. "There is a genuine risk of some higher inflation becoming baked into the system," Pugh said. Many businesses are caught between the burden of rising costs and the risk of losing customers also under strain. Steve Hardeman, managing director of Clevedon Fasteners, which makes rivets and other parts for construction and engineering firms, said his firm had raised prices around five times since 2022 in response to higher electricity bills and labour costs. "We're looking at increasing our prices again because of things that are coming down the line," he said. Nimisha Raja, founder of food manufacturer Nim's, said she had seen a lot of "opportunistic" price rises. She pushed back when one supplier sought to raise the price of courgettes by another 5% after a 30% increase earlier this year. "I said we can't afford to do that because we can't pass this cost on to our customers. And they did back down." The BoE has become increasingly alert to the risk of inflation getting stuck too high. But it is counting on a gradual deceleration in wage growth to continue. At around 5% a year, it is down from almost 8% two years ago but remains far above the 3% level that the BoE thinks is consistent with its 2% inflation target. Despite a slowdown in payrolls numbers, some employers are still scrambling to retain staff. The British arm of German supermarket Lidl said last week it would give workers a fifth pay rise in two years, matching an increase at rival Aldi. Many other firms are taking a more cautious approach. Private-sector pay settlements held at 3% in the three months to July and uncertainty about the economy suggest further caution ahead, data firm Brightmine said on Wednesday. Inflation hitting 4% in September was unlikely to affect pay settlements for early 2026, Sheila Attwood, HR insights and data lead at Brightmine, said. But if inflation holds around 4% in the following months, that could have an impact in the spring, she said. The head of a major trade union group responded to Wednesday's inflation figures by saying workers needed immediate pay rises. "The time for action is now," Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said. The BoE has forecast inflation to slow to 3.6% in December and average 2.5% over 2026 before returning to 2% only in the second quarter of 2027. However, the central bank said the risk of higher-than-expected inflationary pressures had risen. Robert Wood, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, expects inflation to be higher than the BoE does at 2.7% in 2026 and close to 2.5% in 2027, in part because he assumes finance minister Reeves will end a car fuel duty freeze and may resort to other tax hikes to stay on track for her budget targets. Wood predicts the BoE has now reached the end of its rate-cutting cycle. For now, however, most economists think the jobs market slowdown will allow for borrowing costs to be lowered further. A Reuters poll of analysts showed most expect a rate cut in November and another in early 2026. "There is always a risk that wages react to higher inflation, but at least this is not 2021," Philip Shaw, chief economist at Investec, said, pointing to a rise in unemployment, more people entering the workforce and no energy price surge. "It may be an environment where the Monetary Policy Committee chooses to be cautious but the labour market currently looks too weak to pose a major, medium-term inflationary threat."
Telegraph
21 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Boomers behaving badly: Why the over-60s are the wildest generation
Gransnet, the popular social networking site for grandparents, is aflame. Not with disputes over how to roast a chicken or subdue a pack of feral toddlers, but with the question of whether joining Palestine Action is morally acceptable or not. And this, rather than student unions or the bars of Dalston in east London, is the place to be debating it, as baby boomers take up the cause of an organisation that was banned under terror legislation last month. New figures from the Met Police reveal that of the 532 people arrested for supporting Palestine Action in London earlier this month, the average age was 54 but the largest group was people in their 60s (147 arrests), closely followed by 97 arrests of those in their 70s. Twentysomethings, long thought to be the natural foot soldiers of protest, trailed in third place with just 54 arrests. 'It's important to remember these people came of age in a period obsessed with social justice,' says Bobby Duffy, an academic and author of The Generation Myth: Why When You're Born Matters. 'They had the spirit of May 1968, [a period of civil unrest in] France, behind them, and experienced regular protests against the status quo in the UK and US. Retirement also gives you more time – there's a squeezed middle of people too busy with work, children, mortgages and ageing parents to look outward. But when you're young and when you're old, you have the space to focus on what you really care about.' Patricia, 75, has spent decades on the picket line protesting against nuclear weapons and the Iraq war, and for abortion rights and marriage equality. Joining Palestine Action, she believed, would have been the logical next step. 'We're the right people to be doing it,' she says. 'I'm not planning to become a lawyer or travel to America, so the worst-case scenario of a criminal record doesn't really affect me.' But in the end it was her millennial children that intervened. 'My daughters were so upset by the idea I might be arrested that I reconsidered.' Increasingly, we are all having to upend our notions that protest is the preserve of idealistic undergraduates. Many of the marches against Donald Trump have seen retirees outnumber students, while the Extinction Rebellion protests have been almost as thick with grey hair as pink. Who could forget the photographs of a then 60-year-old Emma Thompson perched on a boat in Oxford Circus a few years ago? 'I have often said that baby boomers are going to fundamentally reshape what ageing looks like,' says Jennifer Ailshire, a professor of gerontology at the University of Southern California. 'We had the stereotype of a grandma knitting or an old fellow gardening because we have associated ageing with frailty and ill-health and a lack of ability to be out in social spaces. Boomers are the first generation in the history of the world to have really benefited from new medical interventions and advice on how to stay fitter for longer, and as a result a great number feel younger and seem younger than those who came before them.' Duffy agrees that health is the largest reason for this culture-changing shift. 'Life expectancy in the UK is now over 80; for many, that means a second act spanning decades,' he says. Another important factor is wealth. 'This generation of retirees has far more disposable income than any other. They benefited from rising house prices, golden economic conditions, generous final-salary pensions and free higher education. That creates the means to have an unusual level of freedom.' The third is attitudes. 'This is the post-war generation that drove changes in gender equality, sexual behaviour and individual freedom,' says Duffy. 'They're distinct from their parents in almost every social measure so it's no wonder they are approaching old age with a very different mindset.' This last point is evidenced by the fact that boomers are wilder in their politics – and their pleasures. This is in comparison to both the silent generation and (somewhat shamingly for anyone under 40) their own adult children. Around Britain, millennials and older Gen Zs – who have largely moderated their drinking and swapped clubbing for 6am yoga classes – are quietly watching their parents' social calendars and holiday plans completely outpace their own. Lucy, 33, now refuses to have dinner with her parents during the week. It's not because she is too busy, or because she has too much on to leave work on time. It's not even because they live too far away – after they retired, her parents sold the family home in Wimbledon and bought a two-bedroom flat in Bloomsbury so they could be closer to the best restaurants and bars in the capital. 'I can't see my parents because I can't take the hangovers at my desk the day after,' says Lucy. 'My friends and I tend to stick to one or two drinks, or we meet up to exercise if it's a Monday or Tuesday, but my parents ply me with cocktails and wine and when I refuse they joke about me being pregnant. I love them to bits but I've realised I need to limit my time with them to weekends. They're just too much for me.' This isn't just anecdotal. Baby boomers now drink more alcohol than any other age group, according to figures from the now defunct Public Health England. Studies show that three in 10 boomers drink five days or more a week, while less than 1 per cent of Gen Z does the same. 'Alcohol drinking is incredibly generational,' says Duffy. 'It's about what you were socialised into, but also other changes: it is more difficult and more expensive for young people to get alcohol, whereas boomers were brought up on the idea that going out means drinking. Back then, there was massive sponsorship of big events by alcohol companies, and the advertising of alcohol was embedded everywhere; now young people tend to associate heavy drinking with health problems.' As for going out, Ailshire argues that boomers have always been a particularly social generation. 'Younger adults today have far less time for leisure, and the idea of a single-earner household has almost completely gone out the window,' she says. As a result, millennials are struggling to pay childcare bills and mortgages, and simply don't have the money for babysitters and restaurants. Similarly, those in cities often don't have space in their houses for dinners and parties. 'Then there is the fact that phone addiction eats up so much of younger generations' free time,' says Ailshire. 'It all adds up to a picture where over-60s are socialising much more than those coming up behind them.' And where drinking goes, other traditionally 'bad' behaviours often follow. The over-65s have experienced a 20 per cent rise in STIs in the UK in the last five years, while in Australia, a government report this year found that alcohol, tobacco and drug use among the over-60s had doubled in a decade. Globally, the pattern repeats itself. In France, Les Papy Boomers have become a political force, organising environmental protests from Marseille to Paris. In the US, the 'Raging Grannies' have made headlines for turning up at demonstrations in feather boas and floppy hats, singing protest songs rewritten to target companies in the fossil fuel industry. In Japan, a wave of 'silver start-ups' has seen retirees launching fashion brands, dance studios and even underground nightclubs. Boomers, in other words, are not quietly retiring to potter around the garden and watch Midsomer Murders. And while younger generations may be physically fitter and more socially progressive on paper, they are finding it difficult to match the heady mix of financial freedom and healthy, work-free years their parents are clearly benefiting from. What remains to be seen is whether this is a generational anomaly – the final flourish of a cohort born into a rare period of post-war prosperity who went on to dominate the culture of nearly every decade they have been adults in – or whether it is the new template for ageing in the 21st century. 'I think sadly this is unique to the boomers,' says Ailshire, who was born in 1981. 'I just don't think we will be able to retire at the age baby boomers have, and nor will many of us have the same level of wealth when we are no longer working. The boomers are the aberrant generation – and I'm not confident that the concept of a wild retirement will endure much beyond them.'
The Guardian
21 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Trump-fueled gas boom has Gulf coast communities on edge: ‘We will keep fighting'
This story was originally published by Floodlight, a non-profit newsroom that investigates the powers stalling climate action For more than a decade, Rebekah Hinojosa has fought the build-out of liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals near the Texas border with Mexico. She wants to save the pristine land fronting the Gulf of Mexico from massive terminals and the hulking ships that would carry billions of cubic feet of gas all over the world. Using what they call a 'death by a thousand cuts' strategy of opposition, Hinojosa, a founder of the environmental non-profit South Texas Environmental Justice Network, and her fellow advocates have traveled the world. They've pleaded with banks, politicians, insurers and companies to drop their support for the LNG terminals in the overwhelmingly Hispanic community near Brownsville on the edge of the Laguna Atascosa national wildlife refuge. They have notched some David-versus-Goliath victories. Some insurers and investors have severed ties with Rio Grande LNG. One of the three proposed LNG projects there was canceled in 2021. The most significant legal win came a year ago, when the US court of appeals for the DC Circuit vacated Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approval of Rio Grande and Texas LNG, citing the agency's failure to fully consider the terminals' environmental justice impacts, among others things. But then Donald Trump was elected for a second time. The day he was inaugurated, Trump declared an energy emergency and rolled back rules on environmental justice and protections that had helped groups in Texas and Louisiana fight back. Eight months into his second term, at least six projects that had been awaiting crucial federal approvals – including those that Hinojosa has fought – are moving forward again. And residents along the Texas and Louisiana coasts, from which the vast majority of the nation's LNG flows, are facing a different kind of emergency. Fisher Tad Theriot has seen his yearly income from shrimping in the water near the LNG facilities drop from $325,000 in 2021 to $87,000 last year. This year he estimates the income from his catch will be less than half of that. 'If … you don't get away from Cameron, you're not catching shrimp,' Theriot said of the small Louisiana community that already hosts three LNG terminals and where at least two others are planned to be built. The United States has been the world's largest LNG exporter since 2023. Along the Gulf coast in Texas and Louisiana, six terminals are operating, six are under construction and another six are proposed. The amount of LNG exported – last year it was 11.9bn cubic feet a day – is expected to double by 2028. The growth is fueled by the nation's vast reserves of natural gas that can be forced out of the ground by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Fracked gas is sent by pipeline to an LNG terminal where it is superchilled until it's a liquid and then shipped around the world. While a million British thermal units (MMBTU) of natural gas can be purchased in the United States for about $4, after it's superchilled and transported across oceans, countries such as Japan and Germany pay $12 to $15 per MMBTU for that gas. Even after the cost of producing and shipping the LNG, companies that export LNG stand to make billions of dollars in profits. Billions more are made by the middlemen who buy and sell the fuel. A US Department of Energy study finalized in May said LNG creates jobs, expands the US gross domestic product and helps close the trade gap. 'President Trump was given a mandate to unleash American energy dominance, and that includes US LNG exports,' the US energy secretary, Chris Wright, said in the report. 'The facts are clear: expanding America's LNG exports is good for Americans and good for the world.' Developers promise jobs and economic benefits to the areas that host the plants – although studies show those promises aren't always kept. In exchange, LNG facilities in Louisiana receive billions of dollars of local property tax breaks. Louisiana's Cameron parish alone would forfeit nearly $15bn between 2012 and 2040 if all proposed terminals were built. Several companies that produce LNG along the Gulf coast did not respond to requests for comments for this story. Local residents, such as James Hiatt, founder of the regional environmental and community advocacy group For a Better Bayou, say the communities do not benefit. Pointing to houses abandoned in Lake Charles after Hurricane Laura five years ago, Hiatt said: 'If they have so much money, why don't they actually pour that money into the communities where they operate? They give little peanuts. [It's] nothing to the amount of money that they have been given by the government and the people here.' They do get one thing, activist Roishetta Ozane, founder of the Vessel Project, an environmental justice organization, says: pollution. While families struggle to pay for their own energy, Ozane said all the local community gets from the methane build-out is 'more health problems'. The production and transportation of LNG also generates significant greenhouse gas emissions, including methane and carbon dioxide. John Allaire, a retired oil and gas engineer, owns land adjacent to the Commonwealth LNG site in Cameron parish, one of the terminals that has received conditional approval from the federal government. And across the Calcasieu ship channel from his property, he can see Venture Global's Calcasieu Pass 1 LNG, and the site of its expansion, called CP2. He has watched 90 meters of his shoreline disappear in the past 27 years because of rising sea levels and subsidence caused by the climate crisis. Burning more fossil fuels, including LNG, will speed the rise of the waters around the terminals – and around the globe. While the terminals themselves will be protected by 26ft-high seawalls, Allaire's land – and that of others around the terminals – will not. Sign up to Down to Earth The planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essential after newsletter promotion 'These are the estuaries that supply the seafood that Cameron parish and Louisiana's so famous for,' Allaire said, pointing to wetlands near his home where crabs and shrimp lay their eggs. 'But that'll all be backfilled [with] concrete and sheet pilings and tanks … It'll change this environment forever.' LNG is sometimes promoted as a 'bridge fuel' because it burns cleaner than coal. But Cornell scientist Robert Howarth warns that its full lifecycle emissions – including methane leaks during drilling, liquefaction, shipping and regasification – is 33% worse for the climate than coal. That claim is disputed by the industry, which has produced its own study claiming LNG is more environmentally friendly than coal. The International Energy Agency has warned that any new fossil infrastructure jeopardizes global climate goals. The LNG industry says its fuel is helping by replacing coal in countries such as India. But a recent analysis from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis found that India is turning toward renewables, not LNG, to replace coal. Others are questioning whether demand for the fuel will support the boom in the production of LNG. Export terminals require gas prices of around $8 per MMBTU to break even – far more than the $3 to $5 per MMBTU equivalent of energy that countries like India can afford. Despite these analyses, developers are touting a booming market. Trump has extracted promises from Asian countries, including Japan and Vietnam, to purchase more LNG, but not all of the deals are binding – or even new. Allaire has seen such promises fail in the past. Golden Pass LNG in Texas, Allaire notes, was originally built as an import facility, but is now being refashioned as an export terminal after a pause caused by the bankruptcy of the construction firm building the project. 'They spent billions of dollars, took out hundreds of acres of wetlands, and they imported seven loads of LNG,' Allaire said, predicting that 'these places will go out of business, and they will be stranded resources'. In the meantime, new numbers from the Energy Information Administration, the Department of Energy's statistical agency, indicate the rapid increase in LNG production is increasing the cost of natural gas – the country's main fuel source to generate electricity. 'The high demand for gas exports is … pushing up the price of the gas that supplies 40% of US electricity – a cost that will be passed on to consumers,' predicted the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. Despite Trump's aggressive promotion of LNG, Tyson Slocum, director of the energy program for Public Citizen, said there are still grounds to fight the build-out, even if the environmental and justice arguments have been removed by his administration. 'These additional exports are going to expose Americans to higher gas prices,' he said. 'You can't declare an energy emergency where you claim domestic shortages of energy at the same time you're going to greenlight a bunch of export terminals.' For residents such as Roishetta Ozane, adding more LNG facilities is not an abstract energy debate. It's a lived experience of cumulative harm, environmental erasure and political abandonment caused by the petrochemical industries around Lake Charles, 30 miles (50km) north of the epicenter of the LNG development. 'Our community is already surrounded by pollution,' she said. 'It makes absolutely no sense to approve two or three new LNG facilities here in south-west Louisiana when we already have as much industry as we do. 'It's just like a death sentence.' Still, both Ozane and Rebekah Hinojosa refuse to give up. In late July and early August, Ozane was among roughly 70 Gulf coast advocates who protested outside the headquarters of companies in New York City that are financing and insuring the LNG boom. 'We will still keep fighting and speaking up to do everything we can to stop these projects, because our community doesn't want these projects,' Hinojosa said. 'I mean, for us, it's about continuing to exist here.' Floodlight is a non-profit newsroom that investigates the powers stalling climate action. Sign up for Floodlight's newsletter here.
