The European Union’s reliance on Russian gas and the risk that Moscow could cut supplies has pushed the bloc to target an 80% filling level of its storage sites by Nov.1, in time to meet high demand during winter. The chart below shows the percentage of gas filled in EU storage sites.
83.5%
of EU gas storage is filled.
Updated
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Europe’s gas storage still at comfortable levels
Although the winter gas season usually begins in early October, when heating demand rises, Europe experienced milder weather than usual for the time of year, and this delayed the withdrawals from inventories by more than a month.
This was a relief to European nations that have been facing an energy supply squeeze as Russia cut gas exports after the West imposed sanctions in response to its invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022.
Russian pipeline flows of gas to Europe are now only a fraction of what they used to be in recent years.
The European Union as a whole met a target for refilling gas storage sites to 80% by November 1 ahead of time, and moved far above that when gas storages reached a high of 95.50% in mid-November.
Storage level began slowly falling on November 14, data from Gas Infrastructure Europe showed, but a snap of cold weather increased the pace of storage withdrawals in December.
Analysts believe hitting zero storage this winter is unlikely, so long as Europe can continue importing liquefied natural gas (LNG) and does not experience a super-cold winter.
Failure to save gas this winter would also make it far harder to fill storage for next winter.
LNG imports have helped Europe rapidly fill storage this year, but in the absence of Russian flows in 2023, the tightly supplied LNG market might not be able to get Europe's storage facilities back to comfortable pre-winter levels.
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EU countries with the most to fill
Percentage of gas filled in the four EU member states with the largest capacity for gas storage.
Rest of the EU storage
Sources
Gas Infrastructure Europe - Aggregated Gas Storage Inventory
Note
The Aggregated Gas Storage Inventory covers 98% of underground gas storage in the EU. Not all EU member states have gas storage capacities.
Design and development by
Dea Bankova, Michael Ovaska and Prasanta Kumar Dutta
Edited by
David Evans and Jon McClure