Europe caught itself with gas: because of Norway, they leaned on LNG

Having lost a significant part of imports from Norway, countries The EU caught itself and sharply increased LNG purchases in order to restore stocks by winter. Gazprom's exports also increased slightly.

Europe has sharply increased gas injection since September. On the first day of the month, it jumped to 553 million cubic meters, while the average replenishment in August was almost 38% lower and amounted to 344 million cubic meters per day.

Gas injection into European UGS decreased due to the fact that in August the main EU supplier, Norway, transferred part of the production to preventive maintenance and gas exports fell from 330 million cubic meters per day to 218 million cubic meters. According to the Norwegian operator Gassco, today it will amount to 240 million cubic meters, while all preventive maintenance will be completed only in mid-September.

Judging by the data, European traders did not immediately catch on because of the previously known plans of companies in Norway. But they managed to sharply increase LNG imports, which takes about two weeks to ship from the USA. The main increase goes to the terminals of Italy and Germany.

Russian pipeline gas supplies have also increased slightly. If in August an average of 49.4 million cubic meters per day were supplied via the European line of the Turkish Stream, then in September it was 51.5 million cubic meters.

On September 1, according to GIE, there were 84.5 billion cubic meters in European storage facilities — more than 16 billion cubic meters less than a year earlier. European companies have to buy more to restore stocks after the past colder winter. Traders will not have time to keep up with last year's figures. And now they do not have such a need. At least, officially. The European Commission lowered the mandatory limit from 90% by November to 83% in September-December and the current download will allow the plan to be completed by mid-September.

In Brussels, they stated that they were lowering the limits so that stock speculators would not take advantage of the hype and would not raise prices. Apparently, this was partially achieved. Gas prices remain at the level of $ 390 per thousand cubic meters in recent years. However, there is less physical gas, and last winter showed that the period of warm heating seasons may have come to an end.

In this situation, the EU can count on an increase in LNG supplies from new projects in the United States in order to increase current imports if necessary. However, for this, European traders will have to pay a higher price to bypass Asian competitors.

The head of Gazprom, Alexey Miller, stated that the current level of injection into the UGS of the countries The EU poses serious risks of gas shortages in the event of severe or prolonged cold weather.