yahoo! Bloomberg | Stressed by Margin Calls of $1.5 Trillion - Equinor, 6 Sep cockroach alerts

"Liquidity support is going to be needed," Helge Haugane, Equinor's senior vice president for gas and power, said in an interview. The issue is focused on derivatives trading, while the physical market is functioning, he said, adding that the energy company's estimate for $1.5 trillion to prop up so-called paper trading is "conservative."
[...]
So far Germany has introduced Europe's biggest scheme to backstop companies affected by the fallout of the war in Ukraine, setting aside 7 billion euros in loans to be made available to companies facing liquidity issues. German energy giant Uniper SE last week sought an extra 4 billion euros after fully using a 9 billion-euro existing facility, while Austria extended a 2 billion-euro credit to cover the trading positions of Vienna's municipal power utility. Finland and Sweden announced a $33 billion emergency liquidity facility Sunday to backstop utilities through loans and credit guarantees.
[...]
"Power is a local, i.e. domestic, market, so in this case it would be possible to do something governments could control," Haugane said. "But the issue of a gas price cap is different, because the natural gas market is global, and hence not that easy to manage."
[...]
The European Commission is also examining measures to help with liquidity. These could include credit lines from the European Central Bank, new products as margin collateral, and temporary suspensions of derivatives markets, according to a policy background paper seen by Bloomberg News.
[...]
"I have not seen any of the major trading houses have a liquidity issue, they all managed to find lines of credits and bank facilities and they are all making more money than they have ever made," Souki said in an interview at Gastech. "For the utilities in Europe, it is a serious issue because they are buying gas that is now all of the sudden is extremely expensive, and they are regulated by their respective governments."

HOLD THE PHONE ...
RT | Fall in Russia's share of EU gas disclosed

The share of Russian gas in the European Union market has plummeted from 50% to 9% since the beginning of the current year, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday....

Who is collecting premium from 90% share of EU market?

Russian gas imports by EU nations have inevitably been decreasing, Macron told a news conference following a phone call with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. He stressed that it was necessary to act against speculation on energy prices at the EU level, adding that France was in favor of putting a cap on the price of [discount] Russian pipeline gas ...

wut
another helping of "no" cap! NO CAP!, 5 Sep
"OPEC+ agrees small oil production cut"