European Energy Crisis: Full Storage Tanks Don’t Mean Victory

European Energy Crisis: Full Storage Tanks Don’t Mean Victory

All this is good news, but don't bring out the champagne quite yet. It would be a mistake to conclude that European industries and households are ready to coast through this winter on stored gas, or that the energy market is about to return to pre-crisis price levels. 

Do we have enough yet?

Storage levels play a key role, so much so that an EU regulation obliges the 27 member states to fill their gas storage facilities to at least 80% by November 1. This seems to have been largely achieved, as our interactive map shows. On an aggregate level, EU countries have their storage facilities 88% full.

“Norway is now our biggest gas supplier”, European Commission spokesman Tim McPhie said in a Sept. 19 press briefing. McPhie further explained that “the US has filled part of this gap by already going above the level set in the EU-US bilateral agreement on LNG supply” and that the EU “has worked with a number of partners including Azerbaijan, Algeria, as well as having concluded a trilateral agreement with Israel and Egypt”. In short, thanks to efforts at member state level, there has been a significant increase in supplies from different producers.