Europe has not calculated with gas: last year's reserves will run out in a week

With the current withdrawal of gas from storage facilities, Europe will be left without last year's savings in a week, and by the end of March — without all the others. So countries The EU is paying for low reserves for this heating season. It becomes unprofitable for private companies to make them, including for the next season.

By February 4, 41.8 billion cubic meters remained in the storage facilities of the EU countries, according to GIE. And with the current selection, more than 730 million cubic meters per day of UGS will remain without the volumes pumped last year by mid-February.

If storage stocks may fall to 36 billion cubic meters next week, then by the end of March they will drop to almost zero. Europe is paying the price for the fact that by this winter its reserves turned out to be 14 billion cubic meters less than last year — just over 90 billion cubic meters. At the same time, the winter turned out to be frosty and windless, which stimulates consumption.

Thus, the filling of storage facilities in Germany dropped to 29%, in France — to 28%, and in the Netherlands — to 22%.

Most of the reserves are formed by private companies, and they did not want to store large volumes, as they make money on the difference in summer and winter prices and, as they expected, in the whole season they were not in favor of the latter.

After a jump of $ 500 in late January-early February, prices on the Dutch TTF exchange returned to $ 420 per thousand cubic meters.

Obviously, the European Union will pass the heating season without any special failures. LNG supplies are growing, and exports from Norway remain consistently high. However, the issue of creating stocks by next winter will arise again. Judging by the pace of selection, you will have to upload a lot more than in previous years. At the same time, the market situation has not changed.

For example, gas supplies for the summer are sold on TTF for $ 384. While prices for next winter are lower — $ 380. Despite the fact that companies still have to bear the costs of transportation and storage.

At the height of the energy crisis in 2022, the German government, for example, allocated billions of state loans to SEFE and Uniper to pump gas regardless of prices. In 2025, this practice was abandoned in order not to provoke prices. Canceled for the same reason and high limits of filling the vaults. However, as practice has shown, the market, as before, thinks about profits, but not about the energy security of countries.