Europe is back to filling gas storage

MOSCOW, 3 Oct — PRIME. The volumes of gas injection into the underground storage facilities of the EU again turned out to be higher than the selection, interrupting the dynamics of the previous day, follows from the data of Gas Infrastructure Europe.

As a result of the gas day on October 1 (ended at 7:00 Moscow time), the occupancy of European UGS facilities reached 88.07 percent, an increase of 0.25 percentage points. A total of 95.35 billion cubic meters of fuel is now stored in these “undergrounds”.

A day earlier, UGS facilities in Europe switched to net withdrawal when the volume of gas consumption from storage facilities exceeded injection, due to the complete emptying of the storage facility in Belgium. Thus, according to the results of the gas day on September 30, UGS facilities in Europe lost 0.51 percentage points, dropping to 87.83%.

In general, the season of gas injection into storage facilities is nearing completion. Traditionally, the heating season in Europe begins in mid-October, although last year it fully started only in November.

All countries of the European Union are obliged this year to fill UGS facilities by at least 80% by November 1st. Austria (79.77%), Bulgaria (75.81%), Hungary (73.83%), Latvia (52.63%) and now Belgium (0%) will not be able to reach this mark. At the same time, only 18 of the 27 EU countries have underground gas storage capacities, the capacity in them is uneven.

According to the European Commission, gas storage usually provides only 25-30% of the gas consumed in Europe in winter. Even close to the maximum fuel reserves in large European countries do not guarantee a reliable passage of the autumn-winter period, the Gazprom company believes.