Europe's Heatwave Is Becoming an Energy Crisis
India Proposes Stricter Vehicle Emission Rules To Cut Oil Consumption What I Cover Tsvetana Paraskova is an energy and commodities journalist who has contributed to Oilprice.com for nearly a decade, covering global energy markets, commodities,… The intense early summer heatwave in Europe is warming the biggest rivers and drying up their water levels, disrupting energy deliveries, power generation, and key supply chain routes.
The heatwaves in Europe started as early as June, with record-breaking temperatures for weeks on end in Europe’s biggest economies, Germany and France.
As a result, rainfall was severely limited, and key inland transportation river routes were affected by navigation restrictions, with curbs on the freight volumes a barge can ship.
This, in turn, has raised shipping costs and added additional strains to the economies at a time when the protracted Strait of Hormuzcrisisis already hiking Europe’s energy costs and inflation.
On top of economic and inflationary effects in Germany, the heatwave actuallycurbed electricity supplyin France.
Early this week, France’s nuclear power generation was slashed by 6.4 gigawatts (GW), or about 14% of the country’s total power demand for the day, amid the heatwave that hiked river temperatures and limited the ability of the nuclear power plants to use the water to cool reactors.
This is not the first time France hashad to curb outputat reactors and limit nuclear power production due to high summer temperatures.
France still exported electricity to its neighbors despite reduced nuclear power output, but these events appear to be becoming more frequent as heatwaves last longer with more extreme temperatures.
The same goes for disruption to shipping on the 800-mile-long Rhine River, the biggest inland shipping corridor in Europe, which is critically important for Germany’s and central Europe’s supply of coal, diesel, and goods.
The Rhine handles an enormous amount of supplies for Europe, including fuel and coal, adding to supply chain issues that the Hormuz crisis has created for sea routes.
The Rhine River, which runs northwest from Switzerland through Germany, France, and the Netherlands into the North Sea, is a major petroleum product transportation corridor in Europe.
Due to the heatwaves and drought, the levels on the river are low and have now become too shallow for many barges shipping petroleum products to pass.
| Product | Price | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Brent Crude | $102.14/bbl | +0.34% |
| WTI Crude | $96.90/bbl | +0.21% |
| EN590 Diesel | $846/MT | +0.18% |
| Jet Fuel A-1 | $1090/MT | +0.55% |
| Mazut M100 | $450/MT | -0.15% |
| Bitumen 60/70 | $470/MT | +0.08% |
| Sulphur Gran 99.5% | $470/MT | -0.44% |
| Urea 46% Gran | $650/MT | +1.12% |
| NPK 16-16-16 | $460/MT | -0.28% |
| Nat Gas TTF | $15.42/MMBtu | +0.92% |
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