Securing Energy for Europe (SEFE), the German state-owned gas importer, has been instructed to boost the level of natural gas in storage by the equivalent of 8 terawatt-hours (TWh) by December 15, the company said on Wednesday.
Germany nationalized the former unit of Russia’s Gazprom and renamed it SEFE back in 2022, when the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the resultant EU sanctions on Russia prompted the German government to seize former Russian assets to ensure security of supply amid the then energy crisis.
In this year’s energy crisis, triggered by the lack of LNG flows through the Strait of Hormuz for seven months and counting, Germany is struggling to boost gas supply at its storage sites amid little market incentives for companies to do so, and rallying benchmark gas prices to the highest since January 2023.
SEFE has now been ordered by the government, as the company’s owner, to increase gas volumes at its storage sites and make purchases accordingly, the state-owned firm said today, as carried by Reuters.
As of September 29, gas storage sites in the EU were only 71% full, per data from Gas Infrastructure Europe. This compares with more than 80% for the same time last year and the five-year average.
Some major economies, including the biggest, Germany, have even lower-than-average gas stored so far this filling season.
Germany’s vast storage, the world’s fourth-largest, is just about 57% full, which has prompted concerns about supply security if the coming winter turns out much colder than previous winters.
Germany is considering expanding a key market incentive to encourage traders to raise gas storage levels ahead of the winter, a government source told Reuters earlier this month as German gas storage levels sit at a historical low for this time of year.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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