On average increasing by, or doubling, or in some cases, tripling their prices for energy. that compares, if you put it into context with historical levels, that s about as much of an increase as we saw in total for those countries over the past two decades. and i m wondering, philip, how has the strategy for europe changed? because when i was looking at the research, it beggars belief that there really wasn t a strategy in place before all of this, right? well, actually, a lot of the strategy was very nationally focused. it was focused on your own country. it really didn t look at this type of pan european major problem that was sustained for a large period of time. so, it was far too narrow focused and not. they didn tjoin up the dots, in a sense. have theyjoined up the dots? is there a pan european strategy in place now? yes, there is much more of a pan european understanding of the problem. there s far more rules in place, orfar more guidelines in place and strategies in place as t
From extreme situations that may transpire whether that s in the supply of lng, whether that s in the other pipeline gas supply that we get, or maybe in the weather, or demand related factors. phillip lewis, the big boss of vaasaett, a real pleasure. thanks very much for your time. thank you. another guest we spoke to a year ago said europe better pray for a mild winter, or it could face blackouts. she s the managing director and head of global commodities at rbc capital markets. she also sits on the united states national petroleum council, which advises the american government on its oil and gas strategy. helima croft, a real pleasure having you back on the show. and helima, let me start with this, the big picture. are europe and north america in a better or worse position than last year. i mean, last year, we were worried about a winter of discontent. i mean, remember we were deeply concerned about russia weaponizing energy. we were concerned that europe
The problem if it happens again. of course, that hasn t been tested in practice. what remains to be seen is how countries will respond and support others, the solidarity that will be provided in the event that there really are maybe many countries, several countries who are in need of support from the broader system. and that s the challenge that we need to test out. and, of course, while i ve got you, i ve got to ask you the question what is your forecast, the prediction for energy bills this winter? our prediction for the future would be that the prices will stabilise where they are now, which are heavily elevated prices. they could go down, but we re predicting that they probably are more likely to increase than decrease in the short to medium, or longer term especially. and does that vary across the region, if you will? it does. it does vary a lot, with the more expensive countries being, for example, the netherlands, great britain,
A very warm welcome to talking business weekly with me, aaron heslehurst. let s go and take a look at what s on the show. across europe, more than half a trillion dollars was spent in the last year protecting people from the high cost of energy. as the colder months come down the pipeline, and the war in ukraine shows no signs of stopping, is there still an energy crisis for europe and america? how much has changed in the market? and will governments have to spend billions again to protect us from massive bills? i m going to be discussing all of that with these two there they are the man behind the official research which europe uses to figure out the direction of energy bills. and a global market specialist who sits on the council that advises the united states government on energy strategy. plus, it s a year since president biden announced hundreds of billions of dollars for the push to clean energy. just months later, europe followed suit. so i ll talk to the boss of one of euro
Are not saying that but generally speaking, energy has been too cheap for people to really care about the cost of energy on a national basis, in most cases. when the price was very high, industry was turning off, households were turning off not always in a good way, but that actually did lead to less pressure on the system. what about energy bills here in the uk? because as a consumer, i mean, they re awfully high, yes? well, the measures that have been put in place by the regulator, the price cap have, of course, brought the prices down from what they probably would have been otherwise, quite substantially so. but the prices are still, in a european context, they re still very high. britain still has some of the highest energy bills across europe. so, why here in the uk? because the uk is more exposed to those international prices, to some extent, it also has. just the general markets, the energy markets? yes, and there are also some other markets where