Europe may find itself on the verge of a gas shortage, but the launch of Nord Stream 2 will not allow this

After certain events that occurred at the plant in Novy Urengoy, directing all efforts to the execution contractual obligations, "Gazprom" quite strongly depleted its reserves of blue fuel in European repositories. At the moment, they (storages) have a occupancy rate of only 18.3%, and this is by a minute the lowest level in history.

Most of the storage facilities are actively exploited during peak winter periods of consumption, as well as during short maintenance periods. So, such low gas reserves can get out into serious difficulties in fulfilling contracts for the supply of gas in the winter.

Moreover, tension is added by the fact that the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline has not yet started operating at full capacity. So now supplies amount to about 40.8 million cubic meters of gas per day (taking into account the last two-fold increase), and earlier this figure was 77 million cubic meters.

Even if all the problems are resolved in the very near future, and supplies through the pipeline are in full, this may not be enough to meet the peak demand. After all, it may well turn out that the storage facilities (given the current increased consumption due to the heat) could be completely emptied.

Also nervousness for Western gas consumers is added by the fact that Gazprom, one might say, refused buy additional capacity for pumping gas from Ukraine, having reserved only 4% of the additional capacity. In this case, perhaps the only way out of this situation is the earliest possible commissioning of Nord Stream 2.

For reference. Nord Stream 2 is a gas trunkline at the final stage of construction from Russian Federation to Germany through the Baltic Sea with a total length of 2,468 km in two threads. It is an extension of the Nord Stream gas pipeline and passes through the sovereign economic zones of Russia, Germany, Denmark, Finland and Sweden.

Well, the situation around gas supplies in the autumn-winter period looks quite interesting. Write in the comments how you think this situation with gas supplies will develop this year.

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