Europe’s energy crisis gets 8 out of 10 on a scale of scariness, Rystad Energy analyst says. Here are 4 countries central to the crunch.

• Europe’s energy crisis is “scary,” Rystad analyst Fabian Ronningen told Insider. 
• He awarded the crisis eight out of ten on a scale of scariness.
• Here are four countries central to Europe’s supply crunch.

Europe’s energy crisis is “scary” and problems are piling up to worsen it further, according to Fabian Ronningen, a senior analyst at Rystad Energy.

“From one to ten, I would probably give it eight,” Ronningen told Insider of the scale of the crisis. “I think that’s how bad it is at the moment. Scary is a good way to describe it.”  

Europe’s energy crisis, kick-started by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and deepened by Western sanctions, has left Germany, France, and others fretting over supply shortages this winter.

In apparent retaliation against sanctions, Russia has slashed the flow of natural-gas to Europe via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to just 20%, sending prices soaring. Russia’s state-owned energy giant Gazprom has said European natural-gas prices could climb by another 60% this winter as exports to the region fall further.

Dutch wholesale natural-gas prices, the European benchmark, skyrocketed to a record high of nearly 335 euros, or $341, per megawatt hour in the spring of 2022, per Reuters. Since then, prices have fallen back to about 225 euros per megawatt hour — still a jump of about 300% since the start of 2022.

Making matters worse are a build-up of energy-related problems in Norway, France, Germany, and Russia. “Over the last few weeks, you’re getting that increasing feeling of, ‘how bad can it get?’,” Ronningen said.

Insider delved into the issues of these four countries that appear to be exacerbating Europe’s energy supply crunch.