Status: 08/23/2022 3:11 p.m
Despite the greatly reduced delivery volumes from Russia, German gas storage facilities are filling up quickly. The filling is still ahead of the federal government’s schedule – with large regional differences.
The filling level of the natural gas storage facilities in Germany has exceeded the 80 percent mark. According to data from the European Association of Gas Infrastructure Operators GIE (Gas Infrastructure Europe), the level on Sunday morning was 80.14 percent.
“The gas storage facilities in Germany are being filled at an admirable speed,” said the President of the Network Agency, Klaus Müller. Three quarters of the storage facilities are already more than 80 percent full. A federal ordinance stipulates that German storage facilities must be at least 85 percent full by October 1st. It must be 95 percent by November 1st. The 75 percent required by September 1 had been reached more than two weeks earlier. The storage facilities compensate for fluctuations in gas consumption and thus form a kind of buffer system for the gas market.
Strong regional differences
Although filling is progressing well overall, some key reservoirs may miss winter fill levels. “Almost two handfuls” of the storage are not well filled, said Müller. These include strategically important locations in the south and Germany’s largest gas storage facility in Rehden, Lower Saxony, where filling cannot be accelerated for physical reasons.
“That’s why we won’t be able to guarantee 95 percent for all storage,” said the head of the network agency. “But the following applies here: Every cubic meter of gas counts. Thanks to the federal government, we can invest a lot of money to fill up Rehden. We’re doing this with the maximum possible speed.”
The Federal Network Agency took over the storage facility in Rehden in early summer as a trustee from Gazprom Germania, the former German subsidiary of the state-controlled Russian energy group. At that time, the filling was less than one percent. It is now 60.4 percent full.
“Households will not have to freeze”
So while regional shortages cannot be ruled out, experts are becoming increasingly confident about the supply to private households. “We are making good progress with storing and saving. I am very confident that private households will not have to freeze this winter,” said Torsten Frank, Managing Director of Trading Hub Europe, the merger of long-distance gas network operators, the “Rheinische Post”. .
However, filling the gas storage facilities remains a race against time. A big unknown is the weather during the heating season from October, which will have a major impact on the filling rate.
But the biggest unknown remains Russia’s readiness to deliver. The state-owned company Gazprom recently announced renewed maintenance work on the Nord Stream 1 Baltic Sea pipeline. Therefore, no gas will flow to Germany from August 31 to September 2. After that, 33 million cubic meters of natural gas should be delivered daily. This corresponds to the 20 percent of the daily maximum output to which Russia reduced deliveries a few weeks ago.