European natural gas inventories further narrowed their deficit compared with previous years, with stronger pipeline supplies and seasonally weak demand supporting injections.
Underground storage sites across Europe, including the UK, held 812TWh of gas on Wednesday, equivalent to 71.7pc capacity, the latest data from the GIE transparency platform show. The deficit to a year earlier narrowed to 128TWh from 138TWh a week earlier, also reducing the gap against the five-year average to 153TWh from 160TWh.
Net injections across the region fell to 2.23 TWh/d on 24-30 September from 2.42 TWh/d a week earlier, but remained well above the 967 GWh/d recorded a year earlier. With a lower fill level, most European storage sites are likely to have stronger injection capacity available now than at the same time in recent years.
Gas demand across the region remained well below the level seen a year ago, allowing a stronger stockbuild, although consumption increased on the week. Aggregate gas use across 14 large European consumers rose to 7.19 TWh/d in the week to 29 September from 6.64 TWh/d a week earlier, but was still well below the 8.47 TWh/d seen a year earlier.
A rebound in pipeline supplies from Algeria also supported supply availability, offsetting lower Norwegian flows caused by extended outages at key producing fields. Combined flows from Algeria, Azerbaijan and Libya rose to 96mn m³/d over the week to Wednesday from 63mn m³/d a week earlier and 78.4mn m³/d a year earlier. Algeria's exports to Europe recovered this week as upstream and midstream maintenance works began to conclude, with flows at the Mazara entry point towards Italy increasing as high as 57mn m³/d on Wednesday from 32mn m³/d a week earlier.
But the 33mn m³/d increase in supplies from these countries was largely offset by a 22mn m³/d week-on-week drop in Norwegian supplies. Norwegian pipeline flows to Europe dropped both on the week and from the preceding year. Combined Norwegian flows dropped to 246mn m³/d over the week to Wednesday from 268mn m³/d a week earlier and 302mn m³/d a year earlier, according to offshore operator Gassco. Norwegian gas supplies have been constrained by multiple extensions to unplanned maintenance at the country's largest fields. The main driver has been repeated extensions to compressor failure-related works at the 132mn m³/d Troll field, alongside concurrent maintenance at smaller assets.
LNG deliveries to Europe fell by 610,000t on the week to 1.77mn t on 24-30 September, also down from the 2.07mn t in receipts a year earlier, data from shipping analytics firm Kpler show. Lower imports from the US led the drop, falling by 406,000t on the week to 991,000t, and below the 1.27mn t a year earlier. But total US LNG exports increased to 2.63mn t over the week to Wednesday, up from 2.44mn t a week earlier and 1.97mn t a year earlier.
