With lower gas reserves, Europe has not accelerated with gas injection at the beginning of the season, but keeps the level of last year. One of the reasons is Germany, which has lost flexibility without Gazprom's supplies and, with a decrease in LNG imports and windlessness, is forced to sharply reduce inventory replenishment.
In April, the European Union began the season of replenishing gas storage facilities for the next winter. Past of the country The EU finished with reserves below almost 7 billion cubic meters. However, according to GIE, they did not accelerate, but remained at the same level. As a year ago, 1.9 billion cubic meters were pumped into the storage facilities in two weeks of April.
At the same time, one of the reasons for the sluggish pace was Germany. From April 7, it began to reduce the injection and on April 13 it fell to 10 million cubic meters per day, while the selection increased to 55 million cubic meters.
On the one hand, it got colder in the country. On the other hand, Germany was not ready for flexibility. Thus, due to windlessness and cloud cover, the share of green energy fell to 48%, and gas generation increased to 20%, according to the Institute of Solar Energy Systems. Fraunhofer's. Gas demand has increased, but at the same time LNG supplies have declined significantly. If shipments from LNG terminals amounted to about 40 million cubic meters per day before the beginning of April, then they dropped to 22 million.
The reason for the decline in liquefied gas supplies is unknown. German companies are not major customers of Qatar and the UAE, which stopped exporting due to the Iranian war. But they could lose spot volumes of American LNG if they were outbid by competitors from other countries. At the same time, gas supplies from Norway, Europe's main supplier, remains at a high level — above 320 million cubic meters per day.
It is quite possible that this situation is due to the fact that private traders are not in a hurry to replenish the vaults, as they were last year. So, SEFE, nationalized from Gazprom, reports that in Germany's largest storage facility, Reden, only 21 million cubic meters have been booked for the next season, which is 200 times less than the total capacity of the UGS. The essence of the problem lies in the fact that the current gas price is higher than next winter's quotes. And traders are just making money on the difference between summer and winter prices.
In any case, Germany and the countries The EU will have to fill the storage facilities and the overall level should not be lower than 83%, according to the new EU requirements. And depending on the situation in the Iranian war, you will have to pay extra. At least two weeks of downloads this April turned out to be at least $300 million more expensive at current prices than last year.