EU net gas injections to jump to meet commission target

EU member states will need to add 144TWh of extra supply to storage sites in March-September compared with a year earlier to meet the European Commission's proposed start-of-winter target.

Average EU inventories would have to reach 80pc of aggregate capacity by 1 October "to be well-prepared for the winter", based on a draft policy document. And the commission is considering implementing legal requirements for member states to ensure that this is reached.

Stocks at 80pc would be equivalent to around 885TWh, given that transparency platform GIE lists aggregate working gas capacity as 1.11PWh.

Aggregate EU inventories were 321TWh at the start of this month, meaning that a net 564TWh — around 2.64 TWh/d — would have to be added to sites in March-September. Net withdrawals typically persist in March and occasionally continue into April, before sites switch to net injections, which usually peak in the core summer months when demand is weakest.

Cumulative net injections were 420TWh in March-September, meaning they would have to rise by 144TWh to meet the commission's target.

Inventories reached just 826TWh at the start of last winter, the lowest in recent years and almost 60TWh short of the proposed target. Low start-of-winter inventories raised concerns about security of supply this winter and contributed to European hub prices climbing to fresh highs. This prompted calls for regulatory interventions to avoid similar scenarios going forward. And while stocks have narrowed their deficit to recent-year averages since the start of the year — thanks to unseasonably mild weather and brisk LNG receipts — Russia's invasion of Ukraine and resulting concerns over possible supply disruptions have increased the urgency to ensure high inventories for next winter.

Before 2021, inventories had last been below the 885TWh target in 2015 — at 858TWh.

The cumulative net stockbuild in March-September 2020 had been even slower than last year at just 396TWh. But this was partly because unusually high inventories were left at the end of February, paring summer injection demand. And stocks still reached 1.07PWh by the start of the 2020-21 winter.

While net injections of 564TWh in March-September this year would be considerably quicker than in the past two years, they would still be far from a record for the period. The net stockbuild over the period was consistently quicker than 564TWh in 2017-19, peaking at 605TWh in 2019.

By Stefan Krümpelmann