The mild winter enables European countries to use less natural gas, so the European gas price goes down to the levels before the Russia-Ukraine war.

The benchmark European contract, the Dutch Title Transfer Facility (TTF) gas future for the coming month, went down by 50% from a month ago to €73 per megawatt hour on January 2, which hit a record low from February last year.

Although European natural gas prices went down, they still remain at a high level. It was still difficult for high-consumed energy industries to operate.

In addition, the decreasing gas prices will not immediately ease consumers and businesses facing high energy bills. The reason is that utilities buy their natural gas supplies in advance via hedging programs, which may take a few months to lower prices.