Lower Spot Prices Help Italian Economy

摘要

Europe's spot gas prices have remained obstinately high this summer, despite the region's economic fragility and limited use of gas in power generation. In northern Europe, day-ahead prices are now about $10 per million Btu, compared with less than S9 a year ago (WGI Jun.19'13). Italy's spot PSV is slightly higher at ?27.75 per megawatt hour ($10.60/MMBtu), 7% more than the Dutch TTF price, but the trend for Italian prices has been downward for most of the past 18 months.