Stephen Stapczynski, Anna Shiryaevskaya, & Faseeh Mangi, "Europe’s Energy Crunch Will Trigger Years of Shortages and Blackouts" https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-08/eu-energy-crisis-sparked-by-ukraine-war-to-create-blackouts-in-poor-countries

« The center of the issue is Europe’s response to tightening fuel supplies and the war in Ukraine. Cut off from Russian gas, European countries have turned to the spot market, where energy that isn’t committed to buyers is made available for short-notice delivery. With prices soaring, some suppliers to South Asia have simply canceled long-scheduled deliveries in favor of better yields elsewhere, traders say.

“Suppliers don’t need to focus on securing their LNG to low affordability markets,” Raghav Mathur, an analyst at Wood Mackenzie Ltd. said. The higher prices they can get on the spot market more than make up for whatever penalties they might pay for shirking planned shipments. And that dynamic is likely to hold for years, Mathur says. [...]

Usually when there’s a short-term shortage, nations can sign long-term supply contracts, paying a fixed rate for the assurance of reliable deliveries for years. That hasn’t worked this time. Even bids for deliveries starting years into the future are being rejected. »

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