BDEW warns of difficulties in filling gas storage facilities

Because gas is currently expensive, very little is stored in Germany. The storage tanks are at least 50 percent full - and it will still take a while before it gets really cold. However, it takes a lot of effort to achieve the target of at least 70 percent.

Time is running out when it comes to filling German gas storage facilities. According to the energy industry, the goal of reaching a filling level of 70 to 80 percent by the beginning of November is becoming increasingly difficult to achieve. "80 percent is an absolutely high number when we are at 50 percent today. At some point that will no longer be physically possible," said Kerstin Andreae, chairwoman of the executive board of the Federal Association of the Energy and Water Industry (BDEW), on Deutschlandfunk.

The gas storage fill level requirement has been reduced to 70 percent. Nevertheless, this is also an enormous challenge. The goal is still achievable - "but it's getting narrower," explained Andreae.

Andreae sees a disturbed market mechanism as one reason for the slow filling. Typically, dealers bought gas cheaply in the summer and stored it for the more expensive winter. “At the moment, this mechanism is not working because we are seeing a price development, particularly due to the war in Iran, that does not allow for this so-called summer-winter spread,” explained Andreae. “It would be uneconomical at the moment to reserve and store gas.” No company can permanently purchase at a loss.

“Warning against quick scaremongering”

Despite the tense situation, the BDEW boss warned against comparisons with the gas crisis of 2022. The situation today is comparable “neither in terms of quantity availability nor in terms of price developments”. With the construction of the liquid natural gas terminals, a second supply pillar was created that did not yet exist at the time.

The gas supply crisis worsened after the Russian attack on Ukraine in February 2022. Until then, Russia had supplied Germany with large quantities of natural gas. At that time, Germany did not have its own liquefied natural gas terminal and was therefore largely dependent on pipeline gas. “That means that the comparability with previous years is lagging at this point,” said Andreae.

Andreae also pointed out that the gas ordered was delivered and that household customers were contractually protected. She expressly warned against “scaremongering too quickly.”

Andreae described state gas purchases, as the federal government made in 2022, as the wrong approach. The state acted as a buyer and thus automatically drove up prices, she said. Instead, the BDEW boss advocates making storage more economically attractive through relief from taxes, duties and levies. The aim must be for gas to remain in storage for as long as possible and for ongoing needs to be met primarily via liquefied natural gas terminals, among other things.