Page 10 - FSUOGM Week 30 2022

FSUOGM PIPELINES & TRANSPORT FSUOGM

Gas flows in Nord Stream 1 at 20% are

insufficient to fill gas storage ahead of

winter

EUROPE GAZPROM’S announcement that it was cutting to blame for Germany’s mistake in becoming so
gas flows in the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to 20% dependent on Russian gas and don’t see why they
The storage target, of capacity on July 25 means the EU will miss should suffer to bail Germany out.
that once looked very its deadline to fill storage tanks to 80% full by Gas storage tanks in Europe were 66.7% full
realistic, is now an October 1. as of July 25 (chart) and Germany’s tanks 66.4%.
uphill challenge. German Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck A few countries are already close to the 80% goal
said the same day that rationing of energy during or have already reached it, including: Portugal
the winter has become more likely and that Ger- (100%), Poland (98.5%), Sweden (90.8%), Den-
many needs to reduce its consumption of gas by mark (85.6%) and France (75.5%).
15%-20% to be sure of getting through the win- However, the key markets of Czechia
ter. A 15% reduction is equivalent to about 45bn (77.7%), Slovakia (68.3%), Italy (70.5%) and
cubic metres during the heating season and 60 Hungary (49.2%) that are most exposed to Rus-
bcm for the whole year, or about a third of all the sian gas supplies still have some way to go. Cur-
gas Russia usually sends to the EU. rently Europe’s gas storage tanks are on track to
Brussels proposed EU members unilaterally hit 80% by October 1 (red). The boundaries are
cut gas consumption by 15% to conserve gas for the 2020 line (blue) when the tanks were 95.8%
the winter on July 21, in what proved to be an full at the start of the heating season – the sec-
unpopular move. The southern European coun- ond highest level in the last ten years – and 2021
tries of Greece, Spain and Portugal rebelled and (green) when tanks were 77.5% full at the start
have refused to make the cuts, saying they are not of the season – the only time in the last decade

P10 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 30 28•July•2022