Gazprom, Russian gas production and distribution monopoly, made the statement, as Interfax reports.
The Russian company notes that, according to Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE), the season of gas withdrawal from European underground storage facilities ended on April 6. The level of occupancy of UGS facilities dropped to 55% and amounted to 55.4 billion cubic meters.
"The warm winter weather helped Europe to get through the heating season. But there are no guarantees that nature will be as generous the next heating season," the company commented.
According to the outlet, as of April 16, 2023, the volume of active gas in European UGS facilities amounted to 56.6 billion cubic meters, meanwhile on the same date in 2020 it was 58 billion cubic meters. This means that European companies have to fill 1.4 billion cubic meters more to reach the maximum level of injection of the 2019/2020 season - 97.6 billion cubic meters of gas, Gazprom calculated.
"It will be very difficult to do, given the politically motivated decisions aimed at refusing to import Russian pipeline gas. Competition for LNG will have a major impact on the volume of gas available on the European market. In such conditions, replenishing gas reserves in storage facilities to the level of last year may become a non-trivial task for European companies," warn the Russian company's experts.
On August 5, 2022, the Council of the European Union adopted a resolution on a voluntary 15% reduction in demand for natural gas. However, as of the end of the year, the European Union managed to reduce natural gas consumption by as much as 20%.
On March 28, 2023, the EU countries agreed to extend the emergency measures to voluntarily reduce natural gas consumption by 15% for another year.