On November 16, the Anglo American Press Association had a meeting with energy specialist Dr. Thierry Bros in a Zoom session attended by a dozen or so members.

Bros, a professor at Sciences Po Paris, has 30 years’ experience in energy and climate, from the policy side to trading floors.

He gave us a layout of the energy situation across Europe as we head into this crucial winter. Of the industries temporarily shutting their doors because of high energy prices, Bros said, “Quite a few of these industries will never reopen in Europe. It makes no sense to have all those extremely energy intensive industries in Europe when we’re never going to get enough energy anyway.”

Bros said many European industries would be attracted to the US, with its plentiful and cheap energy supplies.

A possible upside to all of this is that European policymakers may manage to decouple the price of electricity from gas, which would bring the price down significantly. Electricity is traditionally indexed to the price of gas because it is the most volatile energy element.

Bros helped us to understand the complicated energy situation and markets, and what to be on the lookout for in the coming months