The global energy crisis could get worse! Thanks to soaring natural gas prices, countries in Europe and the United States have had to turn to "dirty" fossil fuels, especially ahead of the Northern Hemisphere winter, when coal demand surges: Financial blog Zero Hedge recently wrote that due to the high price of natural gas, in order to prevent winter power shortages, power companies restarted coal-fired power plants, the coal demand of major coal mining enterprises in the United States has increased dramatically, and coal producers are almost all sold out in 2022.

New data from Bloomberg shows that U.S. coal supplies are at a 20-year low ahead of winter. The share of U.S. electricity generated from coal is increasing, and U.S. power producers are expected to increase their coal consumption by 19 percent this year. Arch Chief Executive Paul Lang noted that coal producers are unlikely to increase supply any time soon. Ernie Thrasher, CEO of Xcoal Energy & Resources, the largest coal exporter in the U.S., believes demand for coal will remain strong through 2022. And it warns that power supplies in the United States are tight, and power companies think there could be blackouts this winter.

Arch Resources, the second-largest coal miner in the United States, has sold all the coal it will mine in 2022, and the 2022 coal sales price will be 20% higher than the current spot price, Bloomberg reported. Peabody Energy, the largest coal miner in the United States, has sold 90 percent of the Powder River Basin's coal production through 2022. Arch CEO Paul Lang said the company's 2022 thermal coal production will be "fully committed."

Arch sold the coal for $16 a tonne, well above last week's spot price of $13.25, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. "It's almost completely sold out," Peabody Energy Chief Executive Jim Grech said on a conference call Thursday. "We only have a small amount left to sell in 2022 and 2023." "The challenge we have in the U.S. is that most producers are selling out," Joe Craft, CEO of Alliance Resource Partners LP, said last week.

In addition to the United States, Europe's gas crisis has also come with unexpected news: although in the middle of last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller to "start gradually and systematically increasing gas stocks in Europe (Austria and Germany)." As markets focus on the Kremlin's (latest) promise to increase gas supplies to Europe, zerohedge wrote that this is just another chapter in the cat-and-mouse game between Russia and a soon-to-be-cold Europe...

At the time, zero hedge wrote that anyone expecting a sudden surge in Russian gas exports to Europe should not hold their breath, because "Putin has made very clear what Russia wants to save Europe: the launch of Nord Stream 2." As long as Europe's bureaucrats refuse to comply, any hope of lower electricity costs in the coming weeks is a pipe dream at best." As zerohedge points out, it didn't take long to be proved right again: on Saturday, Russian gas supplies via the Yamal-Europe pipeline from Poland to Germany were suddenly and unexpectedly stopped.

According to data from Germany's Gascade gas pipeline operator, on the morning of October 30 local time, the flow of gas through Poland to Germany via the Yamal-Europe pipeline fell to zero, and the flow from the east came to a complete halt. Russia supplies natural gas to Western Europe through a number of different pipeline routes, including the Yamal-Europe pipeline through Belarus and Poland, which has a capacity of up to 33 billion cubic meters of gas per year.

However, when the flow of gas from Russia to the east stopped, the pipeline also subsequently "reversed gas flow" from west to east. To avoid a Russian energy embargo, many eastern European countries that are politically at odds with the Kremlin are now buying gas through contracts with other European countries rather than directly from Russia. The practice became particularly common after the outbreak of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine in 2014. Ukraine, for example, has fully switched to such "reverse contracts," in which Western European companies buy Russian gas and "reverse" send it back east.

Russia's Interfax news agency now blames these "reverse contracts" for Saturday's gas supply "backflow." While demand in Germany has shrunk due to warmer weather, customers in Poland have continued to extract gas from pipelines, leading to a change in gas flow. A spokesman for Poland's state-run oil and gas company PGNiG also said gas deliveries from the east were much lower than normal, but Poland was still getting the amount it had contracted. Poland's gas grid operator Gaz-System confirmed in an emailed statement on Saturday that "there is currently no demand for gas deliveries to Germany."

While Mr Putin's announcement last week mildly allayed concerns, news of a sharp drop in bookings sent European gas prices soaring. European gas prices are expected to hit record highs in the coming days if the flow of gas from Yamal is not restored. At the same time, zerohedge says it is not clear why people are still confused about what will happen next: on October 19, Putin made it clear what many people are thinking, indicating that without Nord Stream 2, there will be no additional gas flowing to Europe. However, despite all of Russia's leverage, Europe continues to delay the final certification of the crucial Nord Stream 2 pipeline.