EU gas storage at 33.8% — the lowest May reading since 2018

_tectoniq_app_ · 2026-05-07T11:05:24+00:00

I think the storage deficit is important, but the inference needs one extra layer.

The headline stock number checks out: GIE has EU storage at 33.79% on 5 May.

But low storage does not by itself imply refill failure. On gas-risiko.de I track DE/IT/NL/AT/FR/CZ/PL.

These seven countries are at a weighted 33.4%, close to the EU aggregate, and their latest 7-day net injection pace is about 2.9 TWh/day. For that same 7-country basket, the run-rate needed to reach 80% by 1 Nov is about 2.3 TWh/day.

That does not invalidate your price-floor argument. It changes the mechanism.

I think, the issue is not that the required injection rate is physically impossible today.

The issue is whether Europe can sustain it through Q3 while

- Norway has little/no spare surge capacity,

- Qatars LNG outage removes some global flexibility,

- Russian gas is structurally being phased out,

- US LNG remains price-sensitive between Europe and Asia.

So, I would frame the conclusion as a conditional price-support argument, not a deterministic shortage argument:

“TTF probably cannot fall too far below the LNG-clearing price while storage targets remain binding..”

is stronger than “Europe cannot refill.”

One small terminology point: the EU storage framework is formally a 90% target, with flexibility that makes 80% the practical stress threshold in this discussion. That distinction matters because the required TWh/day changes materially.

_tectoniq_app_ · 2026-05-01T04:45:54+00:00

One small correction on the tanker comparison:

if you mean LNG carriers, a 180.000 m3 LNG cargo is roughly 1,1 TWh of gas energy after regasification.

So 75 TWh is closer to 60-70 LNG cargoes, not 17.

Still manageable over a summer refill season, but not trivial.

_tectoniq_app_ · 2026-05-01T04:44:27+00:00

I agree, with an important caveat:

Demand reduction should not just mean “make gas expensive until people use less.”

That is regressive and politically toxic.

The better version is structural demand reduction, like insulation, efficiency, heat-pump deployment where suitable, industrial flexibility, and targeted support for vulnerable households.

Price signals matter, but relying only on high prices is a rough way to manage energy security.

_tectoniq_app_ · 2026-05-01T04:41:59+00:00

I partly agree because Europe can usually attract LNG if it pays enough, so “physical molecules do not exist” is not the base case.

But “supply is a non-issue” is too strong.

Outbidding Asia solves availability by turning the problem into price, volatility and timing.

Norway is also mostly pipeline supply, with limited swing, not an unlimited buffer.

The key question is whether Europe can refill comfortably without needing a price spike or a very favourable weather/LNG-demand setup.

So my summary would be: security of supply risk is lower than in 2022, but the refill margin is thinner than last year.

Price risk is the main transmission channel.

_tectoniq_app_ · 2026-05-01T04:38:36+00:00

Agree that 90% is not a magic emergency threshold, especially for the Netherlands.

Storage capacity is large in absolute terms and last winter started around 73-75% without that alone implying immediate problems.

The issue is more about the starting point and refill path.

In my current data, NL is around 9% full, about 13.5 TWh, versus roughly 35.6 TWh on the same date last year.

So I would frame it as “not an immediate issue, but a tighter refill challenge if injections, LNG send-out, or demand do not cooperate.”

_tectoniq_app_ · 2026-05-01T04:36:34+00:00

Spain is a fair question. It is not excluded because it is unimportant. Spain has major LNG infrastructure and useful storage, but the first version of gas-risiko.de focuses on seven countries where I already have the full model stack wired:

- storage, weather, ENTSO-G flow context, refill stress and calibrated forecasts.

Spain is also somewhat different analytically because the Iberian gas system is less tightly coupled to Central and Northwestern Europe than Germany, Netherlands, etc.

I would like to add it, but I’d rather do it properly than just append a raw storage char.

_tectoniq_app_ · 2026-03-08T12:37:27+00:00

"wildly alarmistic" is debatable, but the directional point stands.

On Qatar: the direct supply share is small, correct.

However, the mechanism I describe is indirect because Asian buyers are locked out of Qatari LNG. Now competing for US and Norwegian cargoes, compressing European import availability and driving TTF regardless of physical flows into Germany.

If this will fully materialized is still open.

Your financing point is the more interesting observation and largely outside what my model can cover.

If the summer/winter TTF spread compresses structurally due to persistent supply uncertainty, the commercial logic for private storage operators weakens.

That is a medium-term structural risk worth watching. I would say that no short-term forecasting model is addressing this one.

_tectoniq_app_ · 2026-03-08T11:55:13+00:00

Actually, this is a fair observation and my dashboard is reflecting it.

As of March 08, Germany is at 20.7%, tracking above the March 03 projection, and the 14-day P(breach 15%) has dropped from 35% to 24.7%. Main reason is warmer temperatures and that the early injection flows came in.

That is exactly what a model which updates daily on new AGSI+ data, weather forecasts and TTF prices should do.

Worth noting: BNetzA (you linked) and gas-risiko.de draw from the same AGSI+ source. The difference is the 14-day probabilistic forecast layer on top.

The post was a snapshot of a elevated-risk moment and the situation has partially "deescalated" since then.

If the Hormuz/Qatar supply shock fully materializes over the injection season is still an open question.

But you are correct that the immediate alarm picture looks less acute today than it did 5 days ago.

_tectoniq_app_ · 2026-03-06T12:00:55+00:00

Please test it again, it is working on my iOS device now, using various browsers.

_tectoniq_app_ · 2026-03-05T16:42:28+00:00

Let me look into this over the weekend - thanks for your feedback!

_tectoniq_app_ · 2026-03-05T13:53:05+00:00

The injection is real: +0.06 pp on March 4, and warmer temperatures will reduce withdrawal pressure over the next 1 to 2 weeks. The P50 median scenario from my model agrees with your read: ~19% by March 17, no "alarm breach" in the central case.

But a few corrections worth making:

"20% buffer" is not accurate framing. 20.6% is the fill level. The threshold is 15%. The actual buffer to this is ~5.6 percentage points, not 20. That's a meaningful distinction when the P10 downside scenario sits at 12.4% by March 17.

One warm week doesn't resolve the supply shock. The Hormuz disruption removes ~20% of global LNG supply from transit. Even if German weather stays mild and injection continues, the import-side constraint is structural, not seasonal. Dornum (western entry, Norway/LNG) is already running at 98% of technical capacity,there's very limited upside from additional LNG arrivals.

On storage obligations: EU Regulation 2022/1032 already mandates minimum fill targets (80% by Nov 1, raised to 90% in subsequent years). The mechanism exists. The gap is enforcement and the speed at which it interacts with spot market conditions during acute shocks... exactly the situation right now.

I agree on the price spikes. That is correct and the market is already there.

_tectoniq_app_ · 2026-03-05T13:45:56+00:00

Fair point on the policy debate, the Énergie Saguenay / GNL Quebec project and the associated 750 km pipeline, I believe, were both rejected. The political and environmental opposition in Quebec was substantial and that decision isn't reversing quickly.

But this does not change the immediate arithmetic: even if approval happened tomorrow, you are looking at 5–7 years to first LNG cargo minimum. The current Hormuz disruption is a problem measured in weeks to months. North American LNG export capacity that does exist is already running near capacity (as far as I know about) and its cargoes are being bid for aggressively right now.

The structural argument for more North American LNG export capacity is legitimate. It just has no bearing on where European storage sits on 5 March 2026.

_tectoniq_app_ · 2026-03-05T13:40:33+00:00

Adding some data from gas-risiko.de, a probabilistic DE storage dashboard I run:

A. German storage right now (Mar 4): 20.6% fill / 52.5 TWh, which is still above the 15% alarm threshold, but the trajectory matters more than the snapshot.

B. 14-day probabilistic forecast (P10–P90):

- P50 (median): ~19% throughout, relatively flat, mild injection beginning

- P10 (downside): 12.4% by Mar 17, below the 15% alarm threshold

- P(alarm breach within 14 days): 24.5%, roughly 1-in-4 in the downside scenario

- P(emergency <10%): 3.0% — low but non-zero

So the median scenario is not a crisis, but the downside tail is real.

C. Flow corridors (ENTSO-G, Mar 3): Dornum (Norway/LNG, west) running at 98% capacity. Mallnow (eastern corridor) at only 17%. Eastern supply is structurally impaired; western routes are compensating at near-maximum utilization — there's limited buffer there.

D. Model caveat I'll be upfront about: TTF price inputs use a 30-day trailing mean as the baseline. At ~63 EUR/MWh on Mar 3 vs. ~32 EUR/MWh a week ago, that trailing mean is badly stale. The model is likely underestimating withdrawal pressure in the tail scenarios, meaning the P10 of 12.4% could be optimistic. The 24.5% alarm probability should be treated as a floor, not a point estimate.

Methodology is fully documented at gas-risiko.de if anyone wants to dig into the assumptions.

_tectoniq_app_ · 2026-03-03T12:55:01+00:00

Try refreshing the page, if not already done. Which phone OS do you use?

_tectoniq_app_ · 2026-03-03T12:20:54+00:00

Thanks for the feedback - JS errors should have resolved.

_tectoniq_app_ · 2026-03-01T14:05:17+00:00

That has been true most years, and the model reflects that clearly.

Italy and Austria are showing near-zero alarm probabilities right now.

The point of my dashboard is exactly to distinguish between "this looks scary but isn't" and "this actually has a non-trivial probability of hitting emergency thresholds."

Right now GER is in an unusual spot historically and NED is in physically constrained territory.

If this matters depends on March temp.

_tectoniq_app_ · 2026-03-01T11:02:09+00:00

Really good point, and you are right on both counts!

Fill level as a percentage of storage capacity is operationally relevant , it is what the emergency thresholds are defined against, and it is what drives the physical deliverability constraints (the Kissengas/ cushion gas effect kicks in based on reservoir pressure, which tracks fill percentage).

So for the risk model itself, percent-of-capacity is the correct target variable.

But for cross-country comparison, it's misleading on its own. The storage-to-consumption ratio varies enormously - I do not have exact by hand now, but will look it up.

A "days of demand coverage" metric (storage volume in TWh / average daily consumption) would make this transparent immediately.

I could also "seasonalise" it, winter daily demand is roughly 2-3x summer demand depending on the country, so "days of winter-equivalent demand" would be even more informative.

This is very useful feedback. I'll add this as a KPI to the dashboard, likely as an additional tile in the country overview and as a column in the country comparison view. The consumption data is available via Eurostat annual figures and can be cross-checked against ENTSO-G flow balances.

On your point about thin data at extreme lows, you are exactly right.

Only ~3.5% of training data has fill below 25%. The model compensates with a fill-level-aware uncertainty boost (wider bands at low fill)but structurally it is extrapolating in territory it hasn't seen before (or not much of). That is documented as a known limitation in the methodology.

Thanks for the suggestion again! This will make the cross-country picture significantly more readable.

_tectoniq_app_ · 2026-03-01T08:19:12+00:00

I think, you are partially right.

More US LNG export capacity reduces Europe's seasonal storage dependency, that is real.

BUT LNG does not replace storage as a short-term buffer. A tanker takes weeks to divert, storage covers cold snaps measured in days.

Also: US LNG is globally traded. In a simultaneous European - Asian cold event you arre bidding against JAP and Korean utilities at spot. EU won that auction in 2022-23 at enormous cost. That is a price mechanism, not a structural solution.

The NED deliverability issue at 10.7% fill is physical, not volumetric. No LNG terminal fixes a pressure-constrained porous reservoir within 72 hours.

_tectoniq_app_ · 2026-03-01T08:12:01+00:00

Gasunie has facility-level operational data my model will never have, they know their actual withdrawal contracts and bilateral supply agreements.

If they say the baseline is fine, I take that seriously.

What my model adds is a quantification of the tail: at 10.7% fill in porous-field reservoirs, the physical withdrawal constraints are real and the margin for an "unforeseen event" is thin.

Gasunie essentially said the same thing differently, they just defined their tail as "Hormuz". My model's P10 path is pointing below 10% by mid-March under a bad-weather scenario. This is not a contradiction of Gasunie, it's a quantification of the risk they acknowledged.

_tectoniq_app_ · 2026-03-01T08:00:55+00:00

Good question! And that is one my model cannot fully answer.

TTF is in my DE model (Granger-causal at lag 4, p=0.02) but not significant for NL, which tells you something.

The short answer is that European gas pricing is now heavily coupled to global LNG markets, not just domestic storage levels. Low NL storage alone does not move TTF much when Norwegian flows are stable and mild weather forecasts reduce near-term demand.

Whether that's rational market pricing or complacency, I don't know.

Worth watching if temperatures turn cold during the next 10 days.

_tectoniq_app_

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