Commission official: Europe must keep enough gas in storage at the end of winter

European gas storage facilities have been “bursting at the seams” in recent weeks, with many already completely full and almost no room left for further injections. According to an official from the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Energy, Europe needs to maintain relatively high gas storage levels at the end of winter. Storage levels are one of the key factors driving gas demand outside the heating season, which also has a strong impact on gas prices on the European market.

A relatively warm autumn, strong pipeline gas supplies to Europe from Norway and other regions, and fairly limited competition on the global liquefied natural gas market have recently helped keep gas prices on the European market stable, despite the gradual onset of the heating season. One of the main factors that have continued to push gas prices down in recent weeks is the near-complete filling of underground gas storage facilities across Europe.

According to Paula Pinho, Director for Energy Security at the Directorate-General for Energy (DG ENER), however, storage levels must remain relatively high even after this winter.

“I think we are prepared, but we really cannot just sit back and relax. We know that storage facilities are full now, but we cannot afford to simply use all the gas during this winter,” Pinho said, according to S&P Global.

According to Pinho, as after the end of last winter, Europe must maintain a large reserve to allow storage facilities to be refilled ahead of the next heating season. She said the European Commission is already preparing for the winter of 2024/2025.

Storage facilities were unusually being filled for a while last winter

Filling European storage facilities before the start of the heating season is more important than ever. In response to the sharp reduction in Russian pipeline gas supplies, the European Union introduced a bloc-wide regulation on storage levels last year. Member states must therefore fill their storage facilities before winter and maintain a certain minimum level throughout the winter itself.

After last winter, EU gas storage facilities were more than half full. This was also one of the key factors that helped push gas prices down on local markets from the start of the year. During the last week of December, high temperatures even led to a situation in which storage facilities were being filled for several days, which is unusual during the winter.