The year 2021 witnessed an energy crisis with record increases in the prices of energy resources such as oil, coal and natural gas all over the world.
The coronavirus epidemic, which caused a historical decline in energy demand, caused severe fluctuations in the fossil fuel markets in the face of the rapidly increasing oil, natural gas and coal demands of the economies that reopened after the closures.
Investments came to a halt as energy demand plummeted, many workers lost their jobs and supply chains began to fluctuate.
ENERGY PRICES RISE TO A RECORD LEVEL IN USA AND EU
The rapid increase in demand before energy production, which fell during the epidemic period, has not yet gained momentum, increasing energy prices to record levels in regions such as Europe and the USA, causing disruptions in the markets.
Oil prices, one of the world's most common fossil resources, showed the most volatile course of recent times in 2020, negatively affecting global markets.
After the restrictions applied due to the epidemic, the barrel price of WTI type crude oil decreased by more than 300 percent to minus 37.63 on April 20, 2020. By the end of 2020, the price of Brent crude oil decreased to $42 per barrel, the lowest level since 2015. Despite the rapid increase in oil demand during the normalization process, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the OPEC+ group, which consists of some non-OPEC producer countries led by Russia, preferred to act cautiously to increase their production at the same pace.
INSUFFICIENT COAL SUPPLY IN CHINA
The problems in China's energy sector, which provides about 60.8 percent of its electricity production from coal, played an important role in the problems in the energy sector, especially the inadequacy of coal supply and record-breaking prices.
In the report of the International Energy Agency, it was stated that the demand for coal increased rapidly in the first half of 2021, pointing to the energy crisis in China, and therefore there were sharp increases in prices.
In the report, it was underlined that coal prices reached the highest level in history in October 2021 with $298 per tonne, but demand will continue this year due to global natural gas and LNG demands.
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