VIDEO | “In fact, energy markets are so hot, I need to throw off my jacket immediately.”
Bjarne Schieldrop, Chief analyst of Commodities with SEB, was quick to sum up his point in Thursday’s PostTrade 360° Oslo conference.
The covid-19 crisis first sent energy prices plunging, before eventually picking up again. Then, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February this year, the global oil and gas market immediately became a main battlefront. With Norway being a major producer of energy, and always close to the volatile markets around it, Bjarne Schieldrop offered the post-trade professionals a crash course on the current trading scene and the reality behind it.
The massive pipeline infrastructure for natural gas between Western Europe and Russia – built based on contracts for 40 years or so, under project labels like “Friendship” and “Brotherhood” – create a problematic strategic dependence, going both ways. Even so, the EU is now actually determined to get rid of its dependence on Russia’s fossils.
“We are on fast-forward exit from Russian energy,” says Bjarne Schieldrop.
“Basically an iron curtain is coming down again.”
• News around PostTrade 360° Oslo 2022, on 5 May, is gathered here.
• The conference info site, with detailed agenda, is here.
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