European leaders have scrambled to find alternatives and shipped in an enormous amount of natural gas from abroad. Indeed, they have shipped in so much that the situation has (sort of) reversed itself, and spot values have fallen below zero. 

Unfortunately, this most certainly does not mean that the problem is solved. Germany, and all of Europe for that matter, has enough gas to get through the winter as of now. The problem is how much they have had to pay for it.

As CNN notes, despite being blessed with “unseasonably mild weather” with “consumption closer to August and early September [levels],” natural gas futures “are still 126% above where they were last October.”  

Indeed, to fill European gas storage to capacity, it cost 6.5 times as much this year than in previous years.