The causes

Energy, the expert: why the price of gas in April falls despite the Hormuz crisis

The cost of gas decreased by 7.6% compared to March. But inflation continues to rise and the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked. According to Alessandro Lanza - executive director of Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei and professor of Energy and Environmental Policy at Luiss University - the reasons for the drop are to be found in the difference between the price of the raw material on the wholesale market and that presented to consumers

by Pietro Menzani

8 May 2026

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

In April, despite rising inflation and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, the gas price for vulnerable users fell by 7.6 per cent compared to March, standing at 121.05 cents per cubic metre. This was announced by Arera, the regulatory authority for energy, networks and environment. The drop came after a sharp rise of 19.2 per cent in March, which followed a 49.6 per cent increase in raw material.

To understand why the gas costs have fallen despite the unstable international environment and the difficulties in supply, according to Alessandro Lanza - executive director of Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei and professor of Energy and Environmental Policy at Luiss - it is necessary to keep in mind that "the prices published by Arera and those of the wholesale market, such as Ttf, are not directly comparable because they represent different things, constructed in a different way and referred to different moments of the gas chain".

Different units of measurement

The Ttf (Title Transfer Facility) is the main virtual trading market for natural gas in Europe and its wholesale quotation represents the value of the raw material exchanged between operators. The data released by Arera, on the other hand, reflect the price for the protected end customer. The Ttf, as Lanza recalls, is therefore the cost 'at the source of the market. Arera, on the other hand, uses a monthly ex-post average of actual supply prices and therefore smoothes out the daily volatility of Ttf'.

The market and Arera, therefore, use different units of measurement - €/MWh and €/Smc, respectively - and a technical conversion is needed to compare these quantities. 'There are several points of divergence between the two. First of all,' explains the professor, 'the Ttf is a continuous market, which varies hour by hour. It is an open exchange. The data released by Arera, on the other hand, are the result of an average of the prices charged in the past month'.

Hormuz e fertilizzanti: la crisi che ignoriamo

The influence of the bill decree

If, therefore, the cost of the raw material depends on the supply and demand logic that governs the market, the gas tariff on the bill is affected by all the measures 'that the government is adopting at this historic moment to try to make the consumer pay less'.

The main measure put in place by the executive was the bills decree - passed in February in the Cdm and becoming law in April - which introduced direct social bonuses for low Isee families (in January, Arera raised the threshold for these benefits to EUR 9,796). The decree, as Lanza clarifies, made 'the price charged by Arera disconnected from the international one'.

The forecast for next month

And it is precisely the difference between the cost of the raw material and the final price that the consumer pays that makes it difficult to predict the future trend of bills: 'An analyst only talks about Ttf, i.e. the market, because Arera is in the hands of the government, while the spot is in the hands of the world. It is easy to imagine an increase in the spot price if this difficult supply situation linked to the Hormuz crisis persists. As for the domestic market, the cost of gas depends on the action of Palazzo Chigi and is therefore less predictable'.

If the gas rate on the bill goes down, in fact, 'it means that the government has intervened and kept it down manu militari (i.e. by force, ed), even though the international dynamic was going in another direction,' the professor concludes.