Below-average winter temperatures are driving the fastest pace of withdrawals from natural gas storage in Europe in five years, as heating demand is rising.
EU gas storage sites were only 47% full as of January 21, according to the latest data from Gas Infrastructure Europe.
That’s well below the average for the past few years, signaling that Europe will have to import more gas in the summer to replenish storage supplies.
Gas withdrawals have accelerated this month amid colder-than-normal temperatures in most of Europe, and the pace of withdrawals has been the fasters in five years, according to Bloomberg’s estimates.
LNG cargo arrivals have been at less than half of the daily volumes withdrawn from storage.
The cold weather has driven immediate gas demand higher, while the unfavorable price spread between winter and summer prices is not encouraging for stockpiling.
In addition, global gas benchmark prices have jumped in recent weeks as Arctic weather has gripped most of the northern hemisphere, including the United States and Asia.
As a result, prices have spiked, making LNG imports costlier for any customer in Europe and Asia.
The front-month Dutch TTF Natural Gas Futures, the benchmark for Europe’s gas trading, have jumped by 30% since the start of January, from $34 (29 euros) per megawatt-hour (MWh) on January 2 to as much as $45.40 (38.65 euros) per MWh on January 23.
“With heating demand firm and storage withdrawals accelerating, European buyers have been forced to pay up to secure supply,” Ole Hansen, Head of Commodity Strategy at Saxo Bank, said this week, noting that the extreme cold has driven a sharp rise in heating demand just as supply flexibility has diminished.
Traders have sharply turned bullish on European gas, with funds aggressively buying the market, shifting from a net short of 55.1 TWh to a net long of 57.7 TWh over the last reporting week, Warren Patterson, head of commodities strategy at ING, wrote in a Thursday note.
“This move was driven fairly equally by short covering and fresh longs entering the market,” Patterson said.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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