Gas prices in Europe have tumbled to a sixteen month-low but one leading company boss has warned against expecting prices to fall back anytime soon.
European benchmark Dutch TTF natural gas futures hit close to €57 early this morning while UK gas prices slipped by 13% to 141.26p per therm.
Unseasonably warm weather, high storage levels and easing fears about Chinese demand have all contributed to the slide in energy prices recently.
Indeed, Chinese suppliers are reportedly trying to ship gas to Europe to offset weak prices at home.
Equinor boss Anders Opedal, however, has warned that any respite from high energy bills is only likely to be temporary.
Blaming a combination of renewable energy levies as well as windfall taxes and lack of investment recently in fossil fuels, Opedal said that the switch to greener fuels “will require a lot of investment”.
“These investments need to be paid for, so I would assume that the energy bills may be slightly higher than in the past but not as volatile and high as we have today," he told the BBC.
Equinor is one of Europe's biggest energy companies with operations in 36 countries around the world and making around two-thirds of its money currently from oil and gas.