Gas storage level drops after cold November
Gas storage levels fell to 80% at the beginning of December.
At the start of the heating season in mid-October, storage facilities were 93.5% full. The cold November led to an extremely rapid decline in gas reserves. Only in the winter of 2021 did the storage figures fall even faster, which were only half full at the turn of the year.
However, as the starting point was ten points lower, there is no risk of this scenario repeating itself. In response to the Russian-Ukrainian war, the EU has imposed strict gas stockpiling requirements on member states, which Hungary is complying with in exemplary fashion. Nevertheless, the weather is causing the weakest figures across Europe since 2016 – prompting the price of gas on the exchange, which had been EUR 25-30/MWh, to approach EUR 50 at the drop of a hat.
