Gazprom’s low gas storage levels fuel questions over Russia’s supply

Russia’s Gazprom has emptied its gas storage facilities in western Europe to unusually low levels ahead of the winter, adding to fears that Moscow has exacerbated a shortage of supplies that has boosted prices to a record level.

While European storage levels are low, an analysis of European gas industry data shows the largest shortfalls are at sites owned or controlled by Gazprom, in what critics say increasingly points to an attempt to squeeze European energy supplies.

“The big deficits are where Gazprom facilities are,” said Domenicantonio De Giorgio, adjunct professor of finance at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan, who has analysed data from Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE), an industry body.

“Putin and Gazprom keep saying they have supplied all of their long-term contracts with customers. Well, they have supplied their customers, but they have not supplied themselves,” he said.

Data from GIE show that in countries where Gazprom does not own storage facilities, such as in France and Italy, the level of gas in storage has reached near-normal levels for this time of year.

Excluding Gazprom-controlled sites, European gas storage is just within the five-year average range, which the industry defines as a position of relatively comfortable supplies. Include Gazprom-controlled facilities, however, and the overall level in Europe is well below, at just above 75 per cent compared with 85 to 95 per cent in each of the past five years.

Gazprom has influence over almost one-third of all gas storage in Germany, Austria and the Netherlands.

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The Gazprom-owned Rehden natural gas storage facility in Germany, which accounts for almost a fifth of the country’s storage capacity, is less than 10 per cent full, having been full in October 2019, according to Gas Infrastructure Europe data.

The Haidach facility in Austria, also operated by Gazprom and one of the largest underground storage facilities in central Europe, is only 20 per cent full.

Russian president Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that he had told Gazprom to pump more gas into its storage facilities in Germany and Austria after it finishes filling domestic storage on November 8.

He had previously blamed record gas prices on European energy companies not pumping enough gas into underground storage ahead of the winter and denied that Moscow has restricted supplies to Europe.

“This should certainly create a favorable situation on the European energy market, or at least a more favorable one,” Putin told Gazprom chief executive Alexei Miller.

Putin’s comments come after German chancellor Angela Merkel told EU leaders last week that Russia had committed to increasing its natural gas held in…