European Natural Gas: Low Storage Pushes the Strain Into the Next Winter

European gas storage acts as a buffer between imports that arrive year-round and consumption concentrated in winter. When it comes out of a winter low, purchases the following summer rise, and the cost of refilling is carried into the next season.

In autumn 2025, European storage was already well below its five-year average. The 2026 shock turned that shortfall into a price surge, while US gas stayed cheap.

A winter that began below average

According to filling data published by Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE, AGSI platform), EU gas storage peaked for 2025 on October 12, at 83.15% of capacity. On November 1 it stood at 82.81%. Across 2020 to 2024, the average for that date was 92.33% (Eco3min calculation on AGSI data).

The prevailing view at the time saw a calm market: moderate prices and storage judged sufficient. The World Bank’s Pink Sheet put European gas at $10.42 per million Btu in November 2025 and $9.48 in December, against $15.34 in February 2025. Low storage and a low price are not contradictory. They can simply reflect weak demand and buyers postponing purchases.

EU storage rules had in fact been relaxed. Regulation (EU) 2025/1733 of July 18, 2025 keeps the 90% target but allows it to be met at any point between October 1 and December 1, and permits a 10-point deviation under difficult market conditions.

The winter that drained reserves

Withdrawals over winter 2025-2026 ran deep. Storage was 40.53% full on February 1, 2026, against a 60.11% average for that date over 2020-2024. It hit 27.62% on March 31, its low point, then 27.89% on April 1, against an average of 45.32%. The EU agency for energy regulators (ACER) notes that storage came out of winter below 30%.

The Middle East shock came on top. Following attacks on energy facilities, ACER notes that the Dutch TTF hub price rose above €60 per megawatt-hour during the winter. The Pink Sheet European price went from $11.24 in February to $17.91 in March.

An empty tank is refilled at today’s price.

The cost of refilling

Refilling storage over summer 2026 meant buying large volumes of liquefied natural gas while Gulf supply was disrupted. ACER estimated the extra filling bill at €10 to €15 billion to reach 80%, and calculated that reaching 90% would require about 13% more LNG imports than in 2025. The European Commission invited member states to consider a target lowered to 80%, which the regulation’s flexibility allows.

Prices followed. European gas cost $15.17 per million Btu in June 2026, $21.11 in August and $25.42 in September, according to the World Bank: 2.7 times the December 2025 level and more than four times the 2015-2019 average of $5.92. On October 6, 2026, EU storage was 72.97% full (an AGSI estimate), against a 90.59% average for that date over 2020-2024.

A European price, not a global one

In the US, the largest gas producer, the Henry Hub spot price published by the EIA stayed between $2.77 and $3.15 per million Btu on monthly averages from April to September 2026, after a spike to $7.72 in January. In September, European gas therefore cost 8.6 times US gas. Europe imports most of its gas and pays the price of the last LNG cargo it needs, while a producing country mainly pays its extraction cost.

What would undo the carried-over strain

A mild winter 2026-2027 would reduce withdrawals and the volume to buy back in 2027. A lasting reopening of Gulf routes would bring LNG supply back to the world market. Weaker European industrial demand would work the same way. Conversely, a cold winter starting from 73% storage could take it below its March 2026 low.

The indicator to watch is the gap between the filling rate and its five-year average, published daily by AGSI: it measures how much Europe will have to buy back, more than the price of the day. The wider framework of commodity transmission is developed in our breakdown of commodities as macroeconomic regime signals, and the link from expensive gas to inflation in natural gas pass-through to European inflation.

Last updated — 8 October 2026