The main gas storage facility in Germany turned out to be useless to anyone

For a week now, gas injection into Germany's largest storage facility has been close to zero. However, the UGS is not overcrowded. On the eve of the heating season, its filling does not exceed 29%. Traders do not want to store gas, as it is unprofitable for them.

By September 28, the filling of the Reden storage facility reached only 28.9%, according to GIE. At the same time, the injection into the UGS has dropped to almost zero since September 23.

The current storage reserves of 1.23 billion cubic meters are the lowest in the entire history of Reden. Until April 2022, the UGS was managed by Gazprom through Gazprom Germania, but then the German company was nationalized by the government and now it is managed by the renamed SEFE company. It is controlled by the German government, but also continues to import gas, including Russian LNG.

Another thing is that other market participants, traders, are in no hurry to fill the vault. The injection season in Reden began as early as July 10, when stocks fell to 2% and, obviously, the 1.1 billion cubic meters received during this time belong to SEFE itself.

At least, the company reported on September 9 that auctions for the next gas year, which begins on October 1, did not result in a single contract. Traders refused to book the capacity of Germany's largest storage facility.

This situation may be due to the fact that traditionally gas is cheaper in summer and more expensive in winter. And traders make money on the difference, which is enough for both storage costs and profit. Now the quotes of gas on the stock exchange for the winter barely exceed the current ones. So, the cost of gas at TTF is $ 388 per thousand cubic meters on September 30, and $ 399 for the winter months.

In this situation, traders do not want to store gas in storage facilities, and, quite possibly, rely on winter gas imports. At the same time, the main repository of the country may not fulfill even reduced filling obligations. In Germany, the European ceiling was lowered from 90% to 80%, and it was set even lower for Reden.

In Berlin, it was stated that in this way it would be possible to avoid excessive demand and speculative gas prices. However, physically there will be no more gas from this. Last heating season, 4.1 billion cubic meters were taken from Reden, while now the reserves are almost four times lower.

The total gas reserves in Germany amount to 18.3 billion cubic meters, and the storage facilities are filled by almost 77%. This situation somewhat corrects the situation, but does not remove the risks, since in the last heating season Germany consumed 16.7 billion cubic meters of gas and, according to experts, the warm winter season is over. At the same time, the country's LNG terminals are operating at almost full capacity, but they are mostly booked by companies from other countries.

It is obvious that Berlin is not going to spend budget billions as in 2022, at the same time it has become a hostage of the market, which can play a cruel joke with Germany already this winter.