MOSCOW, February 19 /TASS/. Gas reserves in underground storage (UGS) facilities in France, which ranks among the top five countries in Europe by storage capacity, have fallen below 25%, according to data from Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE).
As of February 17, French UGS facilities are filled to 24.87%, holding approximately 3.2 bln cubic meters of gas.
Other leading countries in terms of storage capacity are also actively depleting their gas reserves. Germany’s UGS facilities are 40.65% full, Austria’s - 54.27%, Italy’s - 55.03%, and the Netherlands’ UGS facilities are at 29.79%.
In other European nations, the levels are as follows: Slovakia’s UGS facilities is 50.45% full, Hungary’s at 47.85%, the Czech Republic’s at 43.71%, Romania’s at 35.69%, Bulgaria’s at 44.04%, Belgium’s at 31.39%, Denmark’s at 36.94%, Latvia’s at 47.53%, and Croatia’s at 24.54%.
Portugal currently has the highest level of storage in Europe, close to 100%, followed by Sweden (88.05%), Spain (66.87%), and Poland (55.99%).
Earlier, TASS, citing data from Gas Infrastructure Europe, reported that gas reserves in European UGS facilities have dropped to about 43%, and gas withdrawals in February have been the highest for this month in the last four years. The current levels of gas in storage at the start of February are the sixth highest in history. Since the beginning of the heating season, the EU has withdrawn about 61 bln cubic meters of gas from UGS facilities, which already exceeds the volume of gas pumped into storage for the autumn-winter period.