Reporting from under the bus: first estimate of the extra energy cost

HUNGARY - In Brief 03 Mar 2026 by Istvan Racz

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A few weeks ago, PM Orbán was sincerely hoping that President Trump would spend the first day of March by hopping on AF1 and flying to Budapest, to promote the case of his true friend and loyal ally in the latter's fight for reelection. However, he was thrown under the bus instead, receiving sharply higher energy import costs, because of the dramatic events in the Middle East, as a gift for his election campaign. Anyway, it appears to be time to make the first estimate of the damage, in terms of the direct extra costs of energy imports, not even mentioning the many possible second-round effects yet. As prices are moving terribly fast, and predominantly in the wrong direction for now, it is important to note that the following snapshot on European gas and Russian oil prices was taken at 13:16 CET, on Tuesday, March 3: For sure, no one has the magic hammer and nails to fix energy prices where they are on the foregoing chart. But one can estimate how much extra cost these prices would mean for Hungary, in case they remained at these levels for a full year's time. So, for gas, TTF went from 32 to 61 €/MWh as a consequence of US/Israeli military action against Iran, and the latter's response, of course. Using Hungary's latest 7.6 million bcm net imports of gas (2025), and today's EURHUF rate of 385, the extra cost would be almost exactly HUF900bn for one year. Crude oil is a more complicated issue, because today's Brent price of $84 per bbl should be seen against the $59 price for Russian Urals immediately before the strikes. This is because Hungary used to import Urals until January 27, when such transits stopped, and have not been restarted until today, due to a Russian d...