Czech gas stocks are significantly lower than a year ago, storage facilities are 48% full

Gas stocks in Czechia were significantly lower today than they were a year ago. The country’s storage facilities are 48 percent full, with more than 1.67 billion cubic metres of gas in storage this morning. At the same time last year, they were 73 percent full. Stocks have been falling faster this year than a year ago, due to colder weather. This is according to data from the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MIT).

Half-empty storage facilities at the end of January are nothing unusual, however. A similar situation has occurred several times over the past ten years, Ekonomický deník pointed out today. “Storage levels are only slightly below the long-term average, so there is really no risk of a shortage, despite what some people are warning,” one of the gas industry experts contacted by the publication said, commenting on the situation.

According to the ministry, storage facilities were more than 93 percent full at the start of last autumn, above the average gas stock levels in previous years. During the current heating season, however, stocks have been falling faster than a year ago. The main reason is the weather. While the heating season began unusually late last year, in mid-October, due to warm weather, it started a month earlier this year. This winter has also been somewhat colder than last year.

Other statistics on the development of gas stocks in the country confirm this. Over the past seven days, 137 million cubic metres of gas have been withdrawn from storage. That is roughly 21 percent more than a year ago.

Radim Dohnal, an analyst at Capitalinked.com, believes that the figures have also been affected by the shutdown of the Russian gas pipeline running through Ukraine. Dohnal says a more important comparison is the amount of gas in storage relative to annual consumption. “In Czechia, gas in storage amounts to 32.5 percent of annual consumption, and across the EU as a whole it is 18.91 percent. In Poland it is 12 percent, in Germany 17 percent, while the remaining countries, including Hungary, report significantly more,” Dohnal noted. He stressed that the EU should continue to strengthen its gas infrastructure, for example by building new storage facilities and expanding interconnections between existing gas pipelines.

Gas storage facilities are being depleted faster this year than in previous years across the EU, according to records from Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE), the European association of gas infrastructure operators. Data from last week showed that they were 59 percent full. That is less than at this time last year, when they were 75 percent full. The figure was even higher the year before, at 79 percent. As a result, Europe will probably have to buy at least another 100 shipments of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the coming period to replenish stocks, which have fallen significantly because of the cold winter and the halt in Russian supplies, Reuters reported.

The main operator of natural gas storage facilities in Czechia is the state-owned company Gas Storage CZ. It operates six underground storage facilities with capacity that, according to an earlier statement by Prime Minister Petr Fiala (ODS), is equivalent to one-third of annual gas consumption in the Czech Republic. Additional stocks are managed by energy company MND, part of businessman Karel Komárek’s KKCG investment group.