BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 12. The storage injections needs for the EU and the UK stand at 68 billion cubic meters (bcm), considering the fact that the European gas demand from November 2022 through March 2023 will be 11 percent down from its 5-year area, Trend reports via the International Energy Agency (IEA).
As the IEA warns, “a colder-than-average winter could deplete European storage levels faster, resulting in injection needs in the range of 80-90 bcm”.
“While EU gas inventories are standing 5 percent, or 5 bcm, above their 5-year average, this additional storage cushion could be quickly erased. There is a wide range of possible outcomes for EU gas storage at the end of this winter heating season. Assuming no or very low Russian gas deliveries to the EU this winter, and average levels of LNG imports (around 13 bcm per month), then gas storage levels could be anywhere between 5 percent and 35 percent by the end of the heating season, depending on demand trajectories over the coming months,” the report said.
Volatile demand trajectories that may be influenced by policy, as well as prices and weather, lead to different future scenarios of gas injection needs in summer 2023.
Thus, these demand trajectories range from 60 to 90 bcm in order to reach a 95-percent storage level by the start of the 2023-24 heating season.
Work on replenishing European gas storage facilities for the winter heating season 2023-24 should begin now, the IEA noted.
“Measures to limit short-term demand and storage depletion, alongside more structural measures to bring down gas demand, are absolutely essential to position Europe for next year,” the report said.
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