Centrica: The UK needs more gas storage capacity to ensure energy security

Gas storage facilities play an important role not only in optimizing the use of gas infrastructure, but also in ensuring the security of natural gas supplies during winter. According to the operator of the UK’s largest underground gas storage facility, the country needs more storage capacity than it currently has to prevent security of supply from being jeopardized during peak winter demand.

Ensuring energy security, particularly in terms of natural gas supplies, has become one of the key issues across Europe following the curtailment of Russian gas supplies. In the UK, the Rough underground gas storage facility, the largest of its kind in the country, was partially reopened last year. The facility had been closed only a few years earlier because operating it on a purely commercial basis was not viable.

The UK company Centrica, which operates the Rough storage facility, created from a partially depleted gas field beneath the North Sea, warned earlier this week according to Bloomberg that gas supply security could be at risk during peak winter demand unless storage capacity is increased further. Before it was closed in 2017, the Rough underground storage facility was the largest in the country, with more than 3 billion cubic metres accounting for around 70% of the UK’s storage capacity. The facility was brought back into operation last October, at one-fifth of its original maximum capacity.