Since Russia stopped supplying gas to Germany, the storage facilities have been filled with natural gas from Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium. The filling levels have been increasing continuously since mid-July – they are now around 90 percent. The price of wholesale natural gas is also falling somewhat.
The natural gas storage facilities in Germany are getting fuller despite the fact that gas deliveries from Russia stopped at the end of August and the start of the heating period. The filling level was recently 90.5 percent overall, as reported by the Federal Network Agency in Bonn. That was 0.1 percentage points more than the day before. Daily totals have been increasing steadily since July 19th. The gas storage facilities in the EU were recently 86.7 percent full.
The level information is always reported with a delay. The price of European wholesale natural gas fell slightly again. In the early afternoon, the price of the TTF futures contract for Dutch natural gas was just under 182 euros, around three percent below the previous day’s price. The contract serves as a guideline for the European price level. Most recently, gas to be delivered in October cost less at the end of July.
The storage facilities compensate for fluctuations in gas consumption and thus form a kind of buffer system for the gas market. They are usually well filled when the heating season begins in autumn. The filling levels then decrease until spring. In the past, on cold winter days, up to 60 percent of gas consumption in Germany was covered by German storage facilities.
Germany currently receives natural gas via pipelines from Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium. At the turn of the year, a total of three terminals for landing liquefied natural gas (LNG) are to be put into operation on the North Sea and Baltic Sea coasts. The filling level of the largest German storage facility in Rehden in Lower Saxony is currently almost 75 percent. Due to planned maintenance of this storage facility, there has not been any injection or withdrawal since September 12th. Maintenance is scheduled to end this Saturday (September 24th).
