Uniper Says European Gas Prices Will Hold Near EUR 50-60/MWh While Hormuz Stays Shut
Uniper CEO Michael Lewis told investors the EUR 50-60/MWh range is the floor as long as the Strait of Hormuz remains closed.
Uniper chief executive Michael Lewis told investors on Tuesday (2026-08-11) that European gas prices should stay in the EUR 50-60/MWh range — roughly double where they traded before the US-Iran war began — for as long as the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, Montel reported. ICE Endex TTF front-month settled at EUR 58.67/MWh on Tuesday (2026-08-11), squarely inside that band.8
European gas has not been near its pre-war levels since the conflict broke out. Iranian missile strikes on Qatar's LNG production and export infrastructure, combined with the Hormuz closure, removed roughly 20% of global LNG supply and pushed prices around 40% above pre-war levels by late May (2026-05-28), according to figures reported at the time. The strait carries around 20% of global oil and gas trade, and its continued blockade makes any sustained return to the EUR 25-30/MWh range effectively contingent on a reopening that has not occurred.3,2
Storage is the second pressure point. Lewis had flagged the problem as early as late May, warning that German gas storage facilities were only 30.6% full as of May 27 (2026-05-27), well below the 38.65% recorded at the same point in 2025, according to Gas Infrastructure Europe data. "If we don't fill the gas storage facilities quickly, we'll have a problem next winter," Lewis told a German newspaper at the time.3
The deficit has not closed materially since. By mid-July (2026-07-13), storage across Europe was running at around 47% full, below the 56% recorded at the equivalent point in 2025, according to data reported by Yahoo Finance. ING flagged in mid-June that European LNG imports were running more than 7% below year-on-year levels and that the shape of the forward curve was limiting the economic incentive for companies to inject aggressively.7,4
There was one short window when prices retreated sharply. The ICE Endex TTF front-month fell 10% on Monday (2026-06-15) to EUR 42.27/MWh after news of a peace agreement began circulating, Montel reported. But analysts told Montel that even a formal deal would not quickly unwind the price premium, citing lingering uncertainty over shipping through Hormuz and the scale of restocking required across European storage.5
That caution proved accurate. Renewed conflict in the Middle East pushed the ICE Endex TTF front-month up 3.5% in early trading on Monday (2026-07-13) to EUR 50.37/MWh, according to Montel data. The ICE UK NBP gas day-ahead equivalent advanced 4% the same session. Traders cited fresh concern over LNG route security as the driver.7
Qatar has announced plans to ramp production back to 80% of pre-war capacity within two months, analysts at Invezz noted in June (2026-06-19). But prices are still expected to remain higher than pre-war levels into 2027 even if that output target is met, because demand to replenish depleted inventories will absorb incremental supply as it comes back online.6
ING warned in June that markets were underpricing the probability of a prolonged closure. The bank pointed to crude imports dropping to 7.8 million barrels per day in May — the weakest reading since October 2017 — as a proxy for broader supply-chain stress, and argued the forward curve was not adequately compensating for the tail risk.4
Italian business lobby Confindustria put harder numbers on the scenarios back in May (2026-05-21). If the Iran war persists to year-end without a Hormuz reopening, European gas prices could almost triple, the group said, citing its own modelling. Even if the conflict ended relatively quickly and allowed production to recover, prices would still average around 14% above 2025 levels, Confindustria said. Its baseline had assumed the conflict would not extend beyond March.1
Germany's ability to close the storage gap before the injection season ends remains the most immediate variable for winter supply. Any fresh signal on Hormuz transit — a formal reopening or a new disruption to shipping lanes — would be the quickest route to a price move outside the EUR 50-60/MWh band Lewis described on Tuesday (2026-08-11).8,3