Europe could face gas shortages in winter, warns leader of 'commodities' giant

Europe risks power cuts if the winter is too severe, at least according to the CEO of Trafigura, one of the world's largest commodities companies.

Speaking

at a Financial Times event, Jeremy Weir addressed the issue of Europe's lack of natural gas at the start of the coldest season.

"We don't have enough natural gas at the moment, to be honest. We're not storing for the winter period," he indicated. "So there is a real concern that if we have a colder winter we may have some power outages in Europe."

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The Trafigura leader's statements come at a time when increases in natural gas supplies to Europe from Russia have seen only a slight increase. Last month Vladimir Putin indicated that Russia, the largest supplier of natural gas to the European continent, was prepared to meet demand. However, the increases have been smaller than was anticipated.


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Against that backdrop, natural gas prices have been rising over the past few weeks. It was only when the supply coming from Russia started to increase that a slight relief in prices was recorded. In the view of Trafigura's CEO, rising natural gas prices have been 'challenging' for the industry.