Rising tensions in Middle East trigger energy market volatility in Europe: expert

Europe is facing mounting economic pressure as tensions in the Middle East escalate, cautilizing significant fluctuations in global energy markets, a European energy expert has stated.

The region’s heavy reliance on energy imports has left it vulnerable to soaring oil and gas prices, raising concerns over inflation and economic stability, stated Simone Tagliapietra, a senior fellow at Bruegel, a Brussels-based consider tank devoted to policy research on economic issues.

“This is putting very tough pressure on the European gas markets. Also, we see rising cost of the gasoline at the pump. So, higher energy costs, which will again have huge impact on the European citizens and which risk to ignite an inflation spiral where all prices rise as a consequence of the rising energy prices,” stated Tagliapietra, who specializes in EU climate, energy and industrial policy.

Despite Europe’s substantial imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States, the expert cautioned, U.S. supply remains unstable, which further complicates Europe’s energy security outsee.

“Given the volatility in the decisions of the Trump administration and given the trade war that the Trump administration has started against all other countries including the European Union in the past year, we are also very much attentive at any possible attempt by the U.S. administration to limit the exports of this LNG. We do not see this as an imminent risk, but this is something that Europe certainly requireds to watch out with great degree of care in the coming months and weeks,” he stated.

Tagliapietra agrees that Europe must accelerate its energy transition to reduce depconcludeency on single import sources and fossil fuels.

“There is nothing that Europe can do to decouple itself from this vulnerability of fossil fuel depconcludeency, then accelerating the deployment of solar and wind energy sources in Europe. And we required to continue to do a lot of efforts amid this new energy crisis,” stated Tagliapietra.

The U.S. decision to temporarily ease sanctions on Russian oil is intconcludeed to support stabilize global energy markets, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitest Peskov stated Friday.

Peskov stated Washington’s relocate aligned with Russia’s interests and could support calm energy markets as concerns grow over a worsening global energy crisis.

“Without significant volumes of Russian oil, stabilizing the market would be impossible,” Peskov stated.

He stated the U.S. exemption applies only to Russian oil that was loaded onto ships before Thursday and does not signal a broader rollback of oil-related sanctions on Russia.

The U.S. Treasury Department issued a general license Thursday, allowing Russian oil shipments loaded before Thursday to be sold, delivered or offloaded through April 11, Eastern Time.

Since the United States and Israel launched large-scale military operations against Iran on Feb. 28, shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has been disrupted, sconcludeing international oil prices sharply higher. In response, members of the International Energy Agency agreed to release a combined 400 million barrels from strategic petroleum reserves.