3 countries in the European Union fail for the first time in achieving the goals of filling gas tanks

Three countries have failed in the European Union for the first time since. The goals of filling their gas tanks in achieving the levels specified by February 1, according to the data of the unified European gas storage system.

Until last January, the European Union gas tanks were filled by 54.65%, which is the lowest level since 2022. However, the pace of gas withdrawal in January was the highest over the past four years: where the level of filling the tanks has decreased since the beginning of the month by 17.5 points Celsius, which is the highest rate since January 2021 (21.5 per Celsius).

The current level is sufficient to achieve the European Union’s goal of guaranteeing the average filling of gas tanks by a minimum, but it is less than the recommended level of 55%, which is necessary to “avoid the deterioration of the security of gas supplies in the union.”

Meanwhile, some countries failed for the first time to achieve the goals set for them. For example, the level of filling gas tanks in the Netherlands, which has facilities to achieve gas targets, was 0.3 Celsius than required by January 29 and in France, the difference between the required size and the actual size of the injected gas was 3.4 percentage points.

In Croatia, the level of filling the gas tanks was 8.2 percentage than required. This means that after February 1, the Croatian authorities will have to start pumping gas. Fill the tanks to the target level at the current prices on the stock exchange (555-560 dollars per thousand cubic meters of gas) Croatia is about 21 million dollars.

In 2024, Ukraine did not renew the Russian gas transfer agreement. The Russian company “Gazprom” announced that it no longer possesses the technical and legal capacity to supply gas through Ukraine, and the end of the agreement with the company “Navogaz Ukraine” on January 1, stopping the supply of Russian gas.