Sweden fears ‘Lehman shock’ on Monday and offers help to energy companies | News

It wants to prevent the Russian energy crisis from escalating into “technical bankruptcies” at energy companies and even to a financial crisis such as after the collapse of the American investment bank Lehman Brothers in 2008. After all, some energy companies are no longer at risk of having enough collateral to generate electricity. trade, which could put them in trouble from Monday, Swedish Finance Minister Mikael Damberg said at a news conference.

“The issue is currently limited to energy producers, but if we don’t intervene, the problems threaten to spread to the rest of the financial market,” said the minister. “That could trigger another financial crisis.”

Due to the sharply increased energy prices on the wholesale market in Europe, energy companies have to dig much deeper into their pockets to buy future electricity and gas. The company Fortum Oyj from neighboring Finland said last week that its collateral has increased by 1 billion euros in a week, to 5 billion euros.

Gas prices have fallen in recent days, but are expected to skyrocket on Monday as the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline failed to restart on Saturday as promised due to technical problems.

Sweden’s credit guarantees are provided by the National Debt Agency. They are primarily intended for Swedish companies, but other Scandinavian or Baltic companies can also rely on them during the first two weeks, it said on Sunday. The Finnish government is meanwhile preparing a similar support mechanism, Damberg confirmed.

There is also concern among some specialists in Belgium. On Twitter, Professor Damien Ernst from the University of Liège and Professor Bruno Colmant expressed their concern. They fear bankruptcy in the energy sector if the gas price were to skyrocket.