The net filling with natural gas (the net difference between the volumes of injection and withdrawal) of underground gas storage facilities outside the EC by April has already reached 1.5 billion cubic meters, according to TACC calculations, based on data from Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE).
So far, European gas storage facilities as a whole are 29.5% full, which is a total of about 32.3 billion cubic meters of gas.
According to the requirements of the European Commission, the EC countries should ensure that the gas storage facilities are filled to 90% between October 1 and December 1 each year. In addition, up to 10% "flexibility" is allowed in case of difficult filling conditions.
Πo this way, the net injection into European gas storage facilities by the beginning of the autumn-winter period of 2026-2027 would need to reach at least 68 billion cubic meters of gas to meet the standard. A year ago, Europe barely managed to reach around 55 billion cubic meters of filled volumes.
The filling of gas storage facilities during the upcoming summer season will probably be with gas at higher prices, due to increased competition for available liquefied natural gas (LNG) volumes on the Asian market following the conflict in the Middle East. That is why "Gazprom" It is predicted that the capacity of European underground gas storage facilities may not reach even 70% by the next heating season.
As of Wednesday, Europe is ending its active heating season, which this year was one of the longest on record, lasting 173 days. This is second only to the 2020-2021 heating season, which lasted an unattainable 190 days. The net gas withdrawal during the past heating season exceeded 61 billion cubic meters, i.e. 6.5 billion cubic meters more than the volumes pumped last summer.