Europe is heading into winter with its lowest gas storage levels for this time of year since records began in 2011, raising the prospect of higher energy bills and difficult choices if the cold season bites.
Storage facilities were 72 per cent full on October 1, according to ENTSOG, the body that coordinates Europe's gas network operators. A year earlier, the level stood at 83 per cent.
Why storage is so low
The shortfall is partly a matter of market logic. Summer gas prices were higher than winter futures prices, making it more profitable to sell gas than to store it, according to the US energy think tank IEEFA.
But geopolitics has tightened the picture. The war involving Iran is restricting shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a route for about 20 per cent of the world's trade in liquefied natural gas. Europe and Asia are now competing for the same cargoes, and gas prices are near a four-year high, according to Politico.
What a cold winter could mean
IEEFA calculates that the EU could face a gas shortfall of up to 14 billion cubic metres if this winter is as cold as the last — about 7 per cent of demand, or the consumption of 10 to 12 million households. Record-low storage leaves the bloc with less of a buffer against global disruptions and vulnerable to price spikes, the think tank warns.
Pressure will increase when the EU's ban on Russian LNG under long-term contracts takes effect on January 1, 2027. Russia accounted for about 19 per cent of the EU's LNG imports in the first half of 2026, according to IEEFA, and replacing those volumes would cost Europeans an additional 3 billion euros — 12 per cent more than the same volume cost last year.
ENTSOG's winter analysis, published this week, sets out scenarios rather than forecasts. In a normal winter the network can meet demand, but storage would fall to 29 per cent by the end of March with ample LNG supplies, and to just 13 per cent if supplies are tight. A cold winter with normal LNG supplies would leave about 7 per cent of demand — 22 billion cubic metres — to be addressed through reduced consumption or at risk of going unmet; with tight LNG supplies, that share rises to 12 per cent, or 40 billion cubic metres.
Prices, not empty pipes
Not everyone expects a physical shortage. S&P Global Energy gas analyst Laurent Ruseckas argues that rapid withdrawals early this winter will drive up prices, which will draw LNG cargoes from Asia to Europe — so gas will become more expensive rather than unavailable. He notes that the war in Ukraine already wiped out 20 per cent of the EU's industrial gas demand, and it has not come back.
Sources:
- EU gas storage at a seasonal low ahead of winter — Nordic Times