Germany's Gas Storage Hits 15-Year Low Before Winter

Germany is heading into winter with the emptiest gas storage in 15 years of records, and its own storage industry says a cold snap could leave the country short.

Germany's gas storage association INES said Tuesday that underground caverns were 53% full as of Sept. 1 — the lowest level in 15 years of data — because there was no economic incentive to build supply over the summer.

INES projects the best Germany can now manage by its Nov. 1 target is 77% full, a level Managing Director Sebastian Heinemann said is "insufficient in extremely cold temperatures."

Europe-wide, gas prices are at their highest in three years, according to Bloomberg.

The Numbers

German storage was 53% full on Sept. 1. Traders have booked capacity equal to 83% of available storage volumes, but slow summer filling means only 77% is still technically possible by Nov. 1, INES said.

Hitting even that would require injections of 1 terawatt hour of gas per day — a rate not reached once in the past three weeks. "If we keep filling at the rate of the past three weeks, we will only reach a filling level of 63%," Heinemann said.

In a normal-temperature winter, 77% would be enough to guarantee supply and leave storage 38% full by April 1, the group's projections show. In an extremely cold one, Heinemann said individual days in January could see a supply shortfall of as much as 25%.