MOSCOW, November 5. /TASS/. The rates of Europe’s gas withdrawal from underground gas storage (UGS) facilities have been twice the five-year average since the beginning of the heating season, according to TASS calculations based on Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE) data.
It has been only seven days since UGS facilities reached this autumn’s peak fill level of 74.96%, yet the total volume withdrawn from them is already double the five-year average. Four of these seven days, October 28, October 29, November 1, and November 2, saw record-high daily gas withdrawal volumes.
This brings European countries’ withdrawals since the start of the heating season on October 28 to 1.6 bln cubic meters (bcm) of gas. Net withdrawal (the net difference between the volume withdrawn and the volume injected) also exceeded 1 bcm.
As of November 3, Europe’s UGS facilities were 74.07% full (15.79 percentage points below the five-year average for this date), compared to 83% in the previous year, which is still the lowest level recorded for this date since tracking began in 2011. EU storage facilities hold around 81.1 bln cubic meters of gas, which is 10.6 bcm lower than last year’s levels and the lowest volume since 2013.
The European Commission requests EU members to make sure their UGS facilities are 90% full between October 1 and December 1 of each year. Moreover, 10% flexibility is allowed in the event of difficult UGS filling conditions. Thus, net injection into European storage facilities was required to reach at least 68 bcm by the start of the 2026-2027 autumn-winter period in order to meet the filling standard. However, the European Commission, anticipating a very mild winter, was prepared to lower this target to 80% for this year. Europe has managed to fill its UGS facilities to only 75.5% of the required capacity, or 51 bcm.