Warm Weather and the Holidays have allowed Europe to Refill its Gas Storages

European countries have returned to refiling their gas storages, taking advantage of the warming weather and reduced demand over the Christmas holidays. This is clear from the platform of the non-governmental organization "Gas infrastructure Europe", which monitors the level of reserves in underground reservoirs in 22 European countries, including Bulgaria.

Data for December 24 showed that eight countries had started filling up their gas storages again, while another eight, including Bulgaria, continued to draw from them and three were not using their reservoirs at the moment.

In the summer, the EU adopted a regulation obliging national authorities to fill at least 80% of their gas storages, and in December the European Commission also published a schedule for maintaining stocks and refueling for the next heating season.

According to the information of "Gas Infrastructure Europe", the average filling level of underground gas reservoirs in the EU is 82.98%.

Although levels have fallen after a month of active use of reserves, gas storage levels are 10.8% higher than the average for the same date over the past five years.

The Bulgarian gas storage "Chiren" is filled to 82.23% of its capacity, and on December 24, 0.3% was withdrawn from it. Just a month ago, there was 5.4TWh of gas in the gas storage, which was 93.7% of its volume. Now the amount according to data of "Gas Infrastructure Europe" is 4.77TWh.

Data from Gas Infrastructure Europe shows that countries using the Christmas lull to replenish supplies are Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Poland and Sweden. Apart from Bulgaria, the other countries that are not currently renewing their stocks are Hungary, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, Romania, Slovakia and Spain. But consumption is low across the board because of reduced demand.

The coming week is forecast to be warmer than last week, allowing the weather to continue to be used to replenish stocks.

On December 24, reserves increased by 0.11% - the first gas day since the beginning of the heating season, in which gas pumping exceeded the withdrawal of reserves.

European LNG receiving terminals have been operating at 67% capacity since the start of December, the same load as November, but LNG stocks in receiving terminal tanks are down 10% from November's average.

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