Gas soars to €103/MWh as Europe starts discussing rationing

Gas soars to €103 and Europe starts discussing rationing

The megawatt hour of natural gas has reached 103 euros. In March it stood at 32. Electricity is above 200 euros per megawatt hour, when just a few months ago it was moving between 20 and 40. With those figures on the table, the European warning to prepare for a prolonged energy crisis no longer sounds like an agency headline and is starting to look like a roadmap. The question is no longer whether there will be restrictions, but where they will bite hardest.

From 32 to 103 euros: the surge that changes the math

The figure that puts everything else in order is the trajectory of gas. From 32 euros per MWh in March to 103 in the most recent reference: more than triple in a few months. Electricity trinc suit with an equally telling range, from the 20-40 euros before March 2026 to more than 200. This is not a price rise, it is a regime change.

Add to that the geopolitical noise. The material carries the alert that ballistic missiles launched from Yemen would have hit the Aramco refinery in Ras Tanura, damaging its main cracking unit. It should be taken with a grain of salt: it is a report with no independent confirmation in the material available. But in a market already on edge, the mere rumor is enough to move the energy risk premium.

Who survives rationing better, the south or the north?

Here the analysis splits in two. Some argue that prolonged rationing hits central and northern Europe far harder, where a winter without heating can kill, than the Mediterranean, where excessive heat degrades quality of life but rarely ends it. The argument has its physical logic: extreme cold kills, exhausting heat is endured.

The opposing side does not dispute the thermodynamics, it disputes the distribution. The argument is that the south gains nothing from a crisis that makes energy more expensive for everyone, and that the bill is already here: electricity above 200 euros per MWh versus the 20-40 before March 2026. Benefit for the Mediterranean, little. And a side effect nobody asked for: more northern Europeans heading south in winter, with housing already under strain.

The pull effect nobody budgeted for

If the cold bites and the heating does not come, the seasonal migration logic accelerates. The forecast points to a winter with more Europeans settling in the Mediterranean, precisely where the rental supply cannot keep up. The energy crisis thus becomes a second-order housing crisis, and those already living there compete with those arriving fleeing the gas bill.

There is still the climate wildcard. Torrential rains are flagged as a variable that can throw any containment plan into disarray. Energy and hydrological infrastructure share a vulnerability when the weather stops behaving.

With these ingredients, the reasonable prediction is a winter of selective restrictions and bills that do not fall, though nobody will sign off on how long the system can hold before discontent goes from grumbling to eruption.