Europe’s Underground Gas Injection Rates Fall for the Fifth Day in a Row

MOSCOW, 1 Oct — PRIME. Filling rates of European underground gas storages (UGS) continue to decline for the fifth day. The indicators fell to the lowest since the beginning of the injection season (end of March – early days of April) – 0.15 percentage points per day due to cold weather. This is evidenced by the data of the Association of Gas Infrastructure Operators of Europe (Gas Infrastructure Europe, GIE).

According to the data at the end of the gas day on September 29, which ended at 7:00 Moscow time on September 30, EU UGS facilities were filled by 88.44%, the indicator increased by 0.15 percentage points (p.p.) per day. The injection rate has been decreasing since September 25 – 0.32 p.p., 0.23 p.p., 0.2 p.p. and 0.18 p.p. on previous days. For comparison, the average rate of injection into EU gas storage facilities in September is 0.28 p.p.

At the same time, Latvia, which filled its storage by only 52.64% and, compared to other EU countries, falls short of the target 80%, has been withdrawing gas from UGS facilities for the third day in a row (-0.15 p.p.). For four days in a row, Denmark also takes gas from storage facilities, in which storage capacities, although more than 90% full, are inferior in capacity to storage in Latvia by 1.4 times.