Zeebrugge: EU gas storage levels stood at 75 percent on 21 October, according to the EU energy regulators’ agency ACER, leaving the bloc with a thinner cushion than a year ago as winter begins. The figure follows a slow summer refill and sits below the nine-year average for the time of year.
Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen repeated the number at a press point on 28 October, setting 75 percent against 83 percent a year earlier. Storage also ended the previous winter lower than usual, at 28 percent against 34 percent, so the refill started from a weak base. ACER puts the upper-bound cost of refilling at 27 billion euros, which shows why low gas storage levels worry ministers and households alike.
The Gas Storage Regulation of 2022 sets a 90 percent target for 1 November, but the Commission softened the practical test in March. Guidance issued then lets member states cut the target to 80 percent in difficult market conditions, with some going to 75 percent and an exception reaching 70 percent. Jørgensen wrote to capitals on 20 March urging early refilling, and the flexibility lets governments spread the work over a longer period. The headline target therefore says less about winter security than the actual gas storage levels do.
Supply conditions explain much of the shortfall. ACER reports that total liquefied natural gas imports fell 14 percent, that no significant Qatari cargoes arrived in summer, and that the Middle East conflict added between 18 and 33 billion euros to import costs. United States cargoes supply about 30 percent of EU gas and Russian gas about 11 percent. Spot prices neared 90 euros per megawatt hour in mid-October, and gas-fired power generation rose almost 9 percent over the summer and 20 percent in August, which pulled volumes away from storage.
The 75 percent reading is only a snapshot. Engie Energyscan, a market tracker, put the EU average at 74.6 percent on 1 November, when net withdrawals began at about 1.4 terawatt hours a day, and it reports a peak of 74.9 percent on 28 October against 82.8 percent a year earlier. Weekly gas storage levels will show how quickly the cushion thins. Jørgensen also said the Commission has opened talks with refiners on raising output, because the squeeze covers oil products as well as gas.
So far the Commission has chosen persuasion over compulsion. Jørgensen’s letter of late September urged voluntary and well-planned demand cuts, such as lower peak-hour electricity use, caps on public building temperatures and switching off public lighting at night. It also pointed to national emergency plans built on interruptible contracts and fuel switching. Even with softer targets, gas storage levels remain the gauge that matters. Jørgensen said on 28 October that the EU now uses 18 percent less gas than in 2022, yet nearly 50 million Europeans cannot adequately heat their homes.
The coming four months will test those choices. A cold spell would draw on the lower reserves quickly, and the phase-out of Russian liquefied gas starts in January 2027. Ministers and the Commission will watch gas storage levels week by week, and the EU winter 2026 plan depends on voluntary savings holding.
