Yves here. Keep in mind that the fact that Europe is set for an energy nailbiter this winter and high costs for procuring gas, with the Super El Nino, odds favor a mild winter or at worst a cold snap with a lot of cloud cover (bad for solar), which translates into Europe squeaking through. However, bad luck and a more severe-than-now-expected winter could produce actual shortages in nations with inadequate stocks (some like Italy and Poland are better supplied than others).
By Tsvetana Paraskova, an energy and commodities journalist who has contributed to Oilprice.com for nearly a decade, covering global energy markets, commodities, and the geopolitical and economic developments shaping supply and demand. Originally published at OilPrice
- Europe’s gas storage is just 63% full, its lowest level for this time of year in nearly two decades, after the Iran war severely disrupted Qatari LNG supplies.
- Europe is losing the battle with Asia for scarce LNG cargoes, pushing TTF gas and northwest European LNG prices to their highest levels since 2023.
- The EU could miss even its flexible 75% November storage target, raising the risk of forced winter buying, higher gas and electricity prices, and an even tougher refill challenge in 2027.
Europe is heading for the winter with one of the lowest levels of gas in storage in the past two decades as the war in the Middle East crippled LNG supply from Qatar, sent gas and LNG prices in Europe and Asia skyrocketing, and intensified competition for the shrunk pool of readily available global LNG cargoes.
A perfect storm of elevated demand for filling depleted storage and electricity during the summer heatwaves, and slashed global LNG supply with Qatar’s cargoes trapped behind the Strait of Hormuz have pushed European benchmark prices to multi-month highs and LNG prices to the highest in three years.
The high prices, with front-month futures higher than those further out in time, have discouraged stockpiling for most of the summer. But Europe doesn’t have a choice and needs to fight for gas to fill storage sites to reasonably adequate levels before December to avoid a winter supply crunch.
That’s easier said than done. Competition from Asia is fierce for LNG supply that doesn’t need to move through the Strait of Hormuz, and Europe is currently losing this race.
One potentially mitigating factor is that Europe now consumes about 10-15% less natural gas than it did in 2021 due to a higher share of renewables for electricity generation and industries adapting from an abundance of gas (including from Russia) to tight markets with elevated prices.
EU Gas in Storage Lowest in Years
Early this year, European policymakers and gas network operators knew they needed to step up spring and summer purchases to fill storage sites that were depleting fast in the cold 2025/2026 winter.
But the war in Iran and the near-disappearance of Qatari LNG supply was such a black swan event that no one could have predicted.
Thus, Europe was left scrambling for supply amid high prices and intense competition for spot LNG supply from Asia, which itself is also seeking alternatives to the term Qatari supply that never arrived in the past six months.
The Iran war and the intensified competition from Asia came just as Europe is trying to build in the spring and summer natural gas inventories for the next winter.
Current storage levels are about 63% full, data from Gas Infrastructure Europe shows. That’s the lowest level for this time of year in nearly two decades and well below the five-year average.
Europe risks missing its target for gas storage ahead of the winter, with the Netherlands becoming the first EU member state to warn it would miss its target.
This doesn’t mean that security of supply is at immediate risk. But the current predicament suggests that Europe will once again hope for a milder winter as it has done in the past four years.
High Gas Prices, Higher Energy Bills
The LNG squeeze and the uncertainty about supply prospects have had a direct and rather painful effect on gas prices.
The European benchmark natural gas prices in Europe at the Dutch Title Transfer Facility (TTF) surged this month to the highest since 2023, and so did the LNG prices in northwest Europe, as gas supply was much more affected than oil flows at the mostly closed Strait of Hormuz.
These high prices could go even higher as winter approaches, and Europe still struggles to build up sufficient inventories.
There is a very real chance that Europe won’t achieve even its softest flexible target to have storage 75% full on November 1, analysts say.
“At the current rate, it will be difficult for the EU to hit even the lower storage target of 75% ahead of the heating season. This raises the prospects of forced buying, increasing upside risk for gas prices,” ING’s commodities strategists Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey wrote in a note this week.
Although it’s not 2022 and prices are nowhere near the record highs from four years ago, “Europe is approaching energy crisis territory,” analysts at Wood Mackenzie said at the end of July.
Spot prices have jumped by 50% since mid-June when the now-dead U.S.-Iran ‘deal to make a deal’ was announced, as gas has proven more sensitive to the Hormuz crisis than oil, they added.
The high gas prices have started to feed through consumer energy bills in Europe. Some countries will see several months of lag due to the various specificities in their energy markets, but others, including the UK, will feel the pinch almost immediately.
UK energy bills are now set for a three-year high at the beginning of the winter, as higher gas prices due to the Iran war have prompted the energy regulator to raise the energy price cap on household costs by 4% for October through December.
Unless LNG starts flowing out of the Strait of Hormuz very soon, Europe faces a winter with the highest prices for gas and electricity in four years, with even higher gas needs next year for the next winter.
“Whichever pathway the Iran conflict takes, it now looks likely that European reliance on just-in-time LNG will be higher this winter – and the storage refill requirement an even steeper mountain to climb in summer 2027,” Bill Farren-Price, Distinguished Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, wrote in an analysis in July.
