German storage operators Sefe and VNG Gasspeicher announced upcoming auctions this week, as improved balance-of-summer–winter spreads revived incentives to book storage capacity.
Sefe announced on 17 June that it will offer 4.2TWh of 2026-27 capacity at its Rehden site on 24 June. It is the largest single offering of Rehden capacity in any auction for the current storage year. Only 3.1TWh of Rehden's 35.7TWh technical capacity is booked for the 2026-27 storage year. Capacity was reduced from its original 45TWh after some was allocated to the separate Speicherzone Nord product, which combines capacity from the Rehden, Jemgum and Haidach storage sites.
Sefe will separately offer 100GWh of its recently launched short-term product at Rehden on 23 June. The product has a month-long contract from 29 June-30 July, making it optimal for for short-term trading opportunities, but it does not support the summer stockfill. The most recent auction for short-term Rehden product took place on 17 June, allocating 30GWh of the 100GWh offered. This was less successful than the first auction on 10 June, when Sefe sold the full 100GWh.
VNG Gasspeicher will auction 1.85TWh of its Trading VSH product for the remainder of the 2026-27 storage year on 23 June and 31 July, it said this week. It will also auction 2TWh of its Trading BOB product on a day before 3 July and 360GWh of its Trading ESE product by 31 July. Contracts for all products will activate two days after the auction.
The THE balance-of-summer-winter 2026-27 spread has been firmly normalised to a summer discount since 12 June, restoring incentives for companies to book and inject into storage. The THE balance-of-June-September contracts closed at an average €0.49/MWh discount to the coming winter on Thursday, having widened from a €0.145/MWh discount on 15 June on the back of the US and Iran signing a memorandum of understanding that pledged to reopen the strait of Hormuz, which would in turn improve Europe's LNG supply availability this summer.
