LONDON/FRANKFURT (Reuters) – German households are paying for ever cheaper wholesale power supplies to industry as the government uses money from soaring domestic bills to subsidize renewable energy, in turn creating overcapacity on the country’s grid.

Chancellor Angela Merkel accelerated the exit from nuclear in 2011, speeding the path towards a power sector that is increasingly dominated by renewables in a move that has been criticized as costly, hasty and damaging.

LONDON, April 26 (Reuters) – German agricultural cooperative
Baywa expects its grain trading volumes to rise to
around 30 million tonnes in 2013, five times as high as last
year, following its purchase of Dutch grains trader Cefetra.

The 125 million euro ($162.57 million) acquisition and its
35 million euro purchase of Germany’s Bohnhorst has turned Baywa
from a local grain trader into a significant international
trading company, Chief Executive Klaus Lutz told Reuters on
Friday.

FRANKFURT/LONDON, April 15 (Reuters) – Germany’s neighbours
enjoy cheap imported power subsidised by Berlin’s green energy
policy and paid for by German households, analysts say.

Generous subsidies have boosted renewable electricity
generation, and created a German green power glut. But Germans
themselves do not see lower prices, which are restricted to the
wholesale market – in fact the opposite. Instead it is their
neighbours whose bills benefit thanks to cheap imports from
Germany.

LONDON, March 28 (Reuters) – Britain is currently paying
some of the world’s highest wholesale gas prices, rivalling
those in energy-hungry Asia and reflecting annual winter spikes
for which government and industry offer no short-term fix.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change has been quick
to point out the market is operating as normal, which is good
news for those selling gas, but cold comfort for wholesale
buyers who on March 22 faced prices up 50 percent from a day
earlier.

LONDON, March 26 (Reuters) – British wholesale gas prices
remained high on Tuesday morning as cold weather kept demand at
around 37 percent above the seasonal norm and gas storage levels
were extremely low.

Gas prices for delivery within the day as well as for
next-day deliveries were both above 100 pence per therm at 0830
GMT, at about the same levels as late on Monday. That compares
with a near record on Friday of about 150 pence. ().

LONDON (Reuters) – Political pressure in Britain is mounting to increase natural gas storage capacity as high winter energy demand has depleted storage levels and exposed the country’s growing reliance on more risky imports.

British gas prices shot to near record highs several times in March on the National Balancing Point (NBP), a virtual trading location, and storage levels are down 90 percent, threatening outages if imports cannot meet high demand.

LONDON (Reuters) – Cyprus’ gas is worth less than $2 billion based on reserves found so far and there may be too little to develop anyway, leaving plans to mortgage them against a $13 billion bailout unlikely to fly, Reuters research has found.

So far, an estimated 200 billion cubic metres (bcm) of natural gas worth $80 billion at current prices have been discovered in the Aphrodite gas field in Cypriot waters.

LONDON (Reuters) – Cyprus’ gas is worth less than $2 billion (1.3 billion pounds) based on reserves found so far and there may be too little to develop anyway, leaving plans to mortgage them against a $13 billion bailout unlikely to fly, Reuters research has found.

So far, an estimated 200 billion cubic metres (bcm) of natural gas worth $80 billion at current prices have been discovered in the Aphrodite gas field in Cypriot waters.

LONDON, March 21 (Reuters) – Britain is grappling with a
potential gas supply crisis as a late blast of winter depletes
stored reserves, coal power plants close and pending maintenance
in Norway threatens to further squeeze supply.

The country risks running out of stored gas by April 8 based
on the fall in its reserves seen since the cold hit at the
beginning of March, Reuters calculations show. (see chart)

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain is suffering the ill effects of its second-tier status among natural gas importers as wild price spikes expose the risks posed by relying on scant storage and leftover supply from Norway and Qatar.

Revealing how close to the wind Britain is playing the market, this month’s late blast of winter cold coupled with limited imports has triggered price spikes of up to 50 percent in a single day.