The upcoming heating season is quickly closing the door on top-ups to Europe’s ground storage (UGS) facilities and bringing to a close the window for market prices to reflect extreme levels as witnessed in the late energy crisis of 2022.

Gazprom’s comments in a recent statement were that the high rate of wholesale prices and low rate of storage injection significantly raise the risk of unreliable gas supplies faced by European consumers this winter. European UGS facilities were 67.3% full as of September 8, according to industry data, which is in line with the data from the European Commission, Gazprom said. The day-ahead delivery prices have climbed above $1,000 per 1,000m³ at key trading hubs.

With autumn setting in, opportunities to stockpile reserves are rapidly diminishing. In these strained conditions, the European energy market is extremely sensitive to sudden surges in demand, unexpected disruptions in imports and very keen competition with Asian markets for liquefied natural gas (LNG) which is very closely watched by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Europe is now facing the prospect of entering the coming heating season with extremely low gas stocks. European Union underground storage facilities’ average rate of stock replenishment during July was one of the lowest since 2011, a trend Eurostat has been monitoring since the introduction of its benchmark in 2010. Injection rates picked up a bit in August, but at present, it appears that Europe will only reach 70-75% of its storage levels at the traditional start of the autumn-winter season, which is the lowest ever.

The rate of gas injection into EU storage facilities did pick up in early September, to one of the highest levels in recent years, but this hectic injection has been paid for at a high price. European Union Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (Eurex) regulated wholesale gas prices in the various European hubs are nearing levels from late 2022.

This dramatic price rise as a result of the Council of the European Union and member states’ efforts to buy winter reserves, no matter how much their bills increased. In spite of these late-season moves, analysts caution that Europe has already lost the much more predictable summer season when gas injections can be most inexpensive.