IntelliNews Lambda: Europe’s gas storage drawdown slows as heating season ends, but EU will struggle to refill tanks this summer

Europe’s gas market is emerging from a difficult winter in its weakest position for years after a sharp acceleration in withdrawals from January, triggered by the “big freeze”, left storage levels well below their long-term norm (chart), 

As the refilling season begins, the EU would already have struggled to reach the 90% mandatory minimum by November 1 under EU rules. With the outbreak of war in the Middle East and a halt to Qatari LNG exports, that target will now be even more difficult to achieve.

The system entered winter reasonably well supplied. On November 1, EU storage stood at 82.82%, below the 15-year IntelliNews Lambda baseline — calculated from the last 15 years of data using a Fourier seasonal model — of 88.67%, but still within a broadly normal seasonal range. With a standard deviation of only 1.6 from the baseline, the start of this year’s heating season was unusually close to the norm.

That changed abruptly in January when the coldest winter conditions in decades triggered a much faster drawdown than the long-term seasonal pattern. Since the start of the year storage has fallen by almost a third (31.9pp), compared with a historical seasonal decline of around 28.4pp.

By March 3, EU storage had dropped to 29.59%, against a 15-year seasonal baseline of 43.09%. That leaves inventories 13.5pp below normal, or roughly 1.2 standard deviations beneath the long-term seasonal trend. While significant, this remains far from the extreme deviations seen during the 2022 gas crisis.

The deficit widened steadily through January and February as the exceptionally cold weather persisted, before stabilising in the past week as temperatures rose sharply across much of Europe. According to data from Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE), withdrawals have slowed markedly in just the last few days.

Storage fell only modestly over the ten days to March 5, suggesting that winter demand is rapidly fading and the market is approaching its seasonal trough that traditionally marks the end of the heating season.

On the current trajectory the heating season is likely to end very soon, probably in the second half of March, with EU storage bottoming out at around 27-28%.

That would leave tanks far below the end-winter levels seen in the past two years: 33.6% in 2025 and 58.3% in 2024. It would also rank among the weakest end-of-season positions of the past decade, though still above the deepest pre-crisis lows seen in earlier cold winters.

This year’s refill season will therefore be significantly harder than normal. If storage follows a typical non-crisis injection path from this lower starting point, the EU will reach only 77-79% by November 1, roughly 11-13pp short of the bloc’s 90% target.

In effect, Europe has moved from starting winter in a manageable position to ending it with a structurally weaker buffer. The unfolding gas crisis caused by the Iranian war will only add to these pressures and is likely to push gas prices higher than markets had already anticipated from the unusually low starting point for the refill season.

Germany worse off

Germany is in a significantly worse position than the EU average and is the weakest point in Europe’s gas balance. According to GIE data, German storage stood at just 20.77% on March 4, compared with 32.49% on the same date last year and 68.39% a year earlier (chart). 

That leaves Germany not only with one of the lowest storage levels among the major European markets, but also well below its own normal seasonal pattern. Based on the non-crisis year history available in the GIE data, German inventories are currently running about 31pp below the early-March norm, or roughly 1.3 standard deviations below trend, a slightly worse relative position than the EU aggregate.

The deterioration over winter has been sharp. German storage has fallen from 56.19% on January 1 to 20.77% now, a drop of more than 35pp in just over two months. Although withdrawals have slowed in the past week as temperatures improved, the system is already close to its seasonal low.

On the current trajectory, Germany is likely to finish the heating season with tanks only around 20-21% full. That is important because Germany has by far the largest storage system in Europe, with a technical capacity of 251.1 TWh, meaning its refill performance is critical to the EU-wide balance.

If German storage follows a normal non-crisis refill path from such a low starting point, tanks will reach only the mid-60s by November 1, well short of the 90% level required under EU rules. In other words, even before the disruption to LNG flows caused by the Middle East war, Germany was already on course to miss the target by a wide margin.

As bne IntelliNews reported, supplies from Qatar will be further reduced due to the closure of the Straits of Hormuz. In addition, the EU was intending to start a winddown of Russian gas imports this year ahead of the ban on Russian gas imports due to come into effect on January 1, 2027. And on top of that, the shortages may be made doubly bad after Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested on March 5 that Russia may choose to turn the tables on the EU and ban its exports to Europe even before the EU’s deadline to ban imports from Russia is reached.

That could exacerbate a rapidly accelerating gas crisis in Europe, which remains hooked on Russian gas. In 2025 imports of Russian gas increased and currently accounts for some 13% of the gas mix, making Russia the second largest supplier of gas to Europe after the US.