“Gazprom” said that nothing guarantees Europe another warm winter

Gazprom said that replenishing reserves in gas storage facilities (UGS) in Europe to the level of last year could be a non-trivial task for European companies.

“Warm weather in winter helped a lot to get through the heating season in Europe. But there are no guarantees that nature will make such a gift in the upcoming heating period, ”said the gas giant in Telegram channel .

It also states that by April 16, 2023, the volume of active gas in European UGS facilities amounted to 56.6 billion cubic meters. m against 58 billion cubic meters. m on the same date in 2020. That is, in order to reach the maximum level of injection of the 2019/20 season (97.6 billion cubic meters of gas), European companies already need to replenish by 1.4 billion cubic meters. m more.

“This will be very difficult to do, given the politically motivated decisions aimed at refusing to import Russian pipeline gas. Competition for LNG will have a great influence on the volumes of gas available on the European market,” Gazprom believes.

In October 2022, the head of Gazprom, Alexei Miller, estimated a “hole” in the gas balance of Europe (during peak demand) at 800 million cubic meters. m per day. Then Mr Miller suggestedthat in the winter season at the peak of cold weather, European cities can freeze in a week. But the coming winter has become a record mild – for example, New Year’s Eve in some EU countries became the warmest on record.

In April 2023, Kommersant noted that in terms of pipeline exports to the EU, Russia is now between Algeria and Azerbaijan. At the current pace, Gazprom’s supplies to the EU may almost cease by 2025.

Read more about what happened to Russian gas exports to the EU after a year of conflict – in the material “Kommersant” “Rescuers”.

Grigory Leiba