MOSCOW, September 17. / TASS /. The European gas facilities have an enormous backlog of gas injections, it cannot be made up, therefore Europe will enter the autumn-winter cold-weather season with a shortage of gas in storage facilities, said the Chairman of Gazprom Board of Directors Alexei Miller on Friday at the International Business Congress.
The backlog of gas injection into European UGS facilities is now 22.9 bln cubic meters, and "this is a big amount," said Miller. "All experts in Europe and Asia say that this lag in gas injection into underground gas storage facilities in Europe cannot be made up. Europe will enter the autumn-winter period with a deficit in underground storage facilities. The only question is what volume do they have" Miller said. He added that last winter, due to the cold winter and spring, the EU countries used a record volume of gas (66 bln cubic meters), and the period of pumping into storage this year began three weeks later than usual.