Русский
The Russian level of gas reserves in underground storage facilities (UGS) has reached 90%, according to Alexei Miller, the chairman of PJSC Gazprom’s management committee. He was speaking to a meeting dedicated to the Day of Oil and Gas Industry Workers.
Miller said that “We are working on developing underground storage facilities. And this year Gazprom will bring the operational gas reserve in underground storage facilities to 73.296 billion cubic meters. This will be a new historical record for the Russian gas industry. Currently, Russian underground storage facilities are already filled to 90% of the target amount. By the start of the heating season they will be full. Our Russian consumers, consumers that operate from underground storage facilities in the UGS zone (here I would like to mention our Belarusian friends), can feel absolutely confident this coming winter that no cold temperatures will worry them. And our foreign partners that work with Russian gas also feel confident.”
In contrast, the level of gas reserves in European UGS facilities is only 65.85%, according to Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE)), the industry association of European gas infrastructure operators. This is 17% lower than the average for the September date and the lowest in 13 years. No-one is suggesting that the EU will run out of natural gas supplies, however, the lower than normal levels are creating price spikes as the EU’s now preferred (non-Russian) suppliers, importers, and distributors take advantage of the political situation.
For example, the price of EU gas rose to €71.96/MWh on September 4. Over the past month, the European Union’s gas price has risen 37.31% and is up 125.08% since the beginning of January. Russian gas is priced at varying levels due to regional infrastructure differences and varying subsidies; however, we can see a variety of sources here that indicate that Russian domestic natural gas use is currently priced at the equivalent of €6.73/MWh, meaning EU gas costs over 976% more—an astonishing mark-up.
