According to these figures, Europe’s underground gas storage facilities are presently at a 97.89% capacity, marking an 8.54 percentage point increase from the average of the past five years for this period. This equates to a storage volume of 107.75 billion cubic meters of gas.
European nations managed to fill their facilities to the planned 90% level by mid-August in preparation for the upcoming heating season. This surpassed expectations set by the European Commission, which had projected to reach this level by November.
The previous record, a fill rate of 97.84%, was set on 28th October 2019.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) had previously indicated that Europe could potentially fill its gas storage nearly to 100%. However, even such high reserves might lead to market instability in the event of a harsh winter combined with a complete halt in gas deliveries from Russia.
