2023-05-06 06:30:11
The European Union has moved to cut its huge dependence on Russian gas in the midst of an invasion of Ukraine while maneuvering to ensure security of energy supplies. After surviving last winter without major supply problems, now it’s time to brace yourself for the winter season, when the greatest gas consumption is concentrated.
The European Commission and the Twenty-seven have raised a shield to shield themselves from the pulse of Vladimir Putin and among the measures implemented is the obligation for the member states to keep filling the gas warehouses to guarantee the supply As happened last year, the plan designed by Brussels requires member states to meet minimum volumes of reserves at different times of the year, with the ultimate goal of reaching November 1 with warehouses full to 90% capacity.
This week Spain has already managed to exceed this percentage of 90% six months before the mandatory deadline set by Brussels after an acceleration in recent weeks in the injection of more gas. The three Spanish underground storages have more than 30,700 gigawatt hours (GWh) of gas equivalent and are half a year ahead of EU requirements, as confirmed by the records of Enagás, the operator of the Spanish gas system, which updates this data daily.
The energy companies have increased the injection of gas from Spanish storages in recent weeks. Only a month ago Spanish reserves were at 77% and in this period the top-ups of these companies have caused the filling to rise by 12 percentage points in an accelerated manner.
In addition, Spain also has the tanks of its extensive network of regasification plants (which concentrate a third of all regasification capacity in the EU) and which currently have 73% of their capacity filled, with 16,785 GWh , according to an estimate taking into account Enagás records. In total, the total Spanish reserves cover more than 40 days of total gas consumption.
The two cold waves that hit Spain within a few weeks of each other (at the end of January and the beginning of March) caused an increase in the consumption of natural gas well above the forecasts that were handled for normal weather conditions. Enagás was able to activate the state of exceptional operation on two occasions in one month due to the increase in demand for gas by households and companies caused by the general drop in temperatures.
The extraordinary increase in gas consumption caused by the cold waves, together with the lower injection of gas into the reservoirs, led the gas operators to use part of the accumulated reserves in an accelerated manner. Underground storage then fell below 80% full for the first time in seven months, after consuming 15% of all stored gas in one month.
Backlog of tickets
The three Spanish underground storages reached an accumulation of over 96.6% in November, with a maximum of more than 34 TWh, which led Enagás to delay some gas inputs into the system. The operator paralyzed for a few days the auctions to inject gas into the underground storages and activated a preventive mechanism to be able to postpone the unloading of ships at the regasification plants if necessary due to high occupancy.
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