Brussels to present law on joint gas purchases on Oct 16

The European Commission will present new legislation on joint purchases of natural gas on October 17 and will propose introducing a cap on wholesale gas prices for several months, German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung has reported, citing sources.

Under the law, EU countries will be required to jointly order gas for injection into storage. The commission will call for a cap on gas prices to be introduced for several months, after which a new pricing index will be established. According to Suddeutsche Zeitung, the commission feels that the Dutch TTF pricing index is heavily linked to pipeline gas and therefore no longer adequately reflects the European market, which now relies significantly more on LNG since losing most of its Russian supply.

EU leaders are due to discuss the proposals later this week, and they could be adopted as soon as November.

There is broad support for joint gas purchases among EU members, Czech industry minister Jozef Sikela said on October 12, urging the European Commission to draw up a proposal as soon as possible. 

"We want to speed up the joint purchases, and to use the purchasing power of the whole ... EU economy in order to get security in supplies for next winter, which might be even more critical than this one," the minister said. "So the commission was asked to speed up the work."