The largest underground gas storage facilities (UGS) of Gazprom in Europe – Rehden and Jemgum in Germany, Haidach in Austria – began to empty and did not switch to the intensive injection mode. Now the stocks there are at a critically low level, despite the president’s instructions to intensively replenish the European storage facilities after the Russian ones are filled. It is reported by Kommersant…
According to European UGS operators, Rehden’s reserves are estimated at 9.58 percent; Jemgum (87.4 percent) and Haidach (54.2 percent) are being withdrawn and already pumped out 10 and 6 million cubic meters, respectively. Another storage facility, Bergermeer in the Netherlands, is 30.71 percent full, but selection has begun there too.
In turn, Gazprom explained that the indicators of net production or injection are biased, since not only the Russian company stores gas in the UGS. At the same time, Kommersant points out, the filling level of the company’s own storage facilities in Europe remains three times lower than the EU average. Thus, it is no longer possible to make up for the lag this year.
Fitch analyst Dmitry Marinchenko stressed that for this it is necessary to pump at least 5 billion cubic meters of gas. Taking into account that the aggregate maximum design capacity of Rehden, Jemgum, Haidach and Bergermeer for injection is about 80 million cubic meters per day, the Russian monopoly will have to maximize the capacity of the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline by the end of the year, but the company has already booked them at a minimum level of up to end of November.
Earlier it became known that “Gazprom” increased gas transit through Ukraine to the maximum. Russian applications for pumping gas through the Sudzha and Sokhranovka gas metering stations totaled 109.3 million cubic meters per day. This corresponds to the maximum contractual volume of transit capacities reserved by Gazprom for this year. Gas flow also increased through Poland via the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline.
In October, Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed Gazprom to start filling European storage facilities after filling Russian ones. The head of the company, Alexey Miller, said that Gazprom will be able to supply additional volumes of gas to Europe on November 8. But on November 8, gas pumping through the Yamal-Europe pipeline stopped.
On November 9, Gazprom announced that the plan for pumping gas into European storage facilities had been approved and had begun to be implemented. Five European underground storage facilities will be replenished in November.
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