Europe's Energy Bill Is Staggering -- Palindromic Friday -- 2-25-22

Link to Tsvetana Paraskova. 

Maybe I'm missing something but this seems so incredible, it's hard to believe even Greta isn't amazed. After all, to a great extent, "she did this," as they say. 

From Citigroup's estimates as cited by Bloomberg and reported at the oilprice link above, so I suppose something could be lost in translation ... but I doubt it.

According to Citi, their analysts suggest that "Europe's energy bill was just $300 billion for the entire calendar year, 2021.

But, for 2022, this year, the estimates are that "Europe's energy bill" will surge to $1.2 trillion.

I can't get my arms around those numbers, but maybe this well help.

Just one month ago, the 2022 estimate was for $1 trillion -- in one month -- in just one month -- the estimate has grown by $200 billion, in the same ballpark as the entire bill ($300 billion) for full year, 2021. And 2021 was expensive.

The 2022 estimate now exceeds the previous all-time high spending on energy from 2008. 

But most folks doubt the estimates have quit rising. From the linked article:

Europe was grappling with high energy bills even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which sent oil and gas prices soaring again on Thursday amid fears of disruption of supplies. Oil prices jumped above $100 per barrel for the first time since the summer of 2014, while Europe’s benchmark natural gas prices surged by over 60% on Thursday, after the Russian attack on Ukraine.

Europe imports from Russia more than one-third of the natural gas and more than one-quarter of the crude oil it consumes. Russia accounted for 26.9 percent of European Union crude oil imports and 41.1 percent of the natural gas imports in 2019, the last pre-pandemic year, Eurostat data shows. Russia is the single largest supplier of oil, the fuel most used in the EU’s final energy consumption.

The latest Western sanctions against Russia in response to the invasion of Ukraine spared the energy sector and bank transactions related to the flow of energy commodities out of Russia.

Welcome to Greta's world. 

By the way, "Europe" has doubled, tripled, quadrupled down, suggesting they will solve the problem with more renewable energy in the form of solar panels and windmills. Good luck. 

I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Elon Musk re-considers that gigafactory being built near Berlin.