Despite dwindling Russian gas supplies, the European Union ended the heating season with record reserves in underground gas storage facilities. Their occupation as of April 1 is estimated at 60.4 billion cubic meters. Me, to write “Vedomosti”.
Data on European gas reserves have been published by the association of storage operators Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE). According to her, the current volume of gas reserves in EU underground storage facilities is more than double the level at the beginning of April 2022 and 1.1 billion cubic meters (2%) higher than the previous record value of 59.3 billion cubic meters in 2020.
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The GIE report indicates that at the end of the heating season, underground gas storage facilities in the EU were 55.6% full. The minimum level of gas in them – 60.36 billion cubic meters – was recorded on March 21, but then the reserves began to increase even taking into account the continued net withdrawal on certain days.
After March 29, according to the GIE, European gas storages gradually filled up:
as of April 1 – from 34 million cubic meters. m by April 2 – from 219 million cubic meters. Mr.
As of April 2, gas reserves in storage facilities amounted to 60.6 billion cubic meters. m (55.7% of storage capacity). After this date, information on EU SKU facility occupancy is no longer available.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the fall in demand for natural gas in the EU in 2022 was the largest in history – minus 13% or 55 billion cubic meters, which would be enough power 40 million homes. Demand fell the most in northern and northwestern European countries.
At the same time, despite the historic decline in demand, EU spending on gas imports approach to a record $400 billion, 24% of which was received by Russia. Twice as much – €792 billion that the EU and UK have spent to protect citizens and businesses from soaring prices.
