2023-07-19 09:35:52
The fill levels rise continuously. The German warehouses are pretty full again.
Brussels/Berlin.
In the middle of summer, the natural gas storage facilities in Germany are already well filled again. According to preliminary data from the European gas storage association GIE, the filling level was 84.25 percent on Monday morning.
In the previous year, a comparable value was not reached until September 1st. The Association of Gas Storage Operators Ines believes it is possible that the storage facilities will be full as early as September.
“If the storage continues with the current regularity, the filling level requirement of 95 percent could already be reached in August and full filling would be possible as early as September,” said Sebastian Bleschke, Managing Director of the Energy Storage Initiative (Ines), to the German press Agency. A regulation introduced last year during the gas crisis stipulates that the gas storage facilities should be 75 percent full by September 1st, 85 percent by October 1st and 95 percent by November 1st.
Buffer system for the market
The storage facilities compensate for fluctuations in gas consumption and thus form a buffer system for the market. Most recently, on the morning of November 14, 2022, a filling level of 100 percent was recorded in Germany. In winter, the filling levels usually decrease, after the end of the heating period they increase again. According to earlier information from the federal government, the amount of natural gas stored in the reservoirs at 100 percent level corresponds to the consumption of two to three average cold winter months.
The lowest fill level of the current year so far was recorded on March 17 at 63.58 percent. A year earlier, on March 17, 2022, German storage facilities were only 24.56 percent full.
The largest German storage facility in Rehden, Lower Saxony, which was controlled by the Russian state-owned company Gazprom until the beginning of April 2022, recorded a filling level of a good 94 percent on Monday morning. Throughout the EU, the fill level was almost 82 percent.
According to the Federal Network Agency, Germany currently receives natural gas via pipeline from Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands. In addition, there are deliveries by ship via the new LNG terminals on the German coast. According to the information, Germany last received natural gas from Russia on August 30, 2022. (dpa)
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