70.5%: EU gas storage falls below five-year minimum with winter approaching
September 26, 2026 · Frisian News
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
EU gas storage stood at 70.5 percent of capacity on 24 September 2026, below the five-year minimum and 15.7 points under the historical average for this date. Germany sits at 57 percent and TTF has already crossed 80 euros per MWh.
EU gas storage stood at 70.5 percent of capacity on 24 September 2026, GIE AGSI+ data compiled by Voltstack show. That puts the bloc 15.7 points below the five-year average for this date, 86.2 percent, and below the five-year minimum of 72.8 percent recorded across the 2021-2025 band. A year ago, on the same gas day, stores were 82.0 percent full.
The gap matters because storage is a buffer, not the whole supply. When a cold spell or a pipeline outage hits, it is the reserve that covers demand before a replacement cargo can be arranged. With less in store than at any comparable autumn in the five-year reference period, that buffer is thin going into a winter where other supply lines are already strained.
Europe entered spring 2026 well below recent norms after a colder, longer 2025/26 withdrawal season, Voltstack notes. The low point came on 1 August 2026, when the EU aggregate hit 57.1 percent, a historic low for that calendar date, Euronews reported on 20 August 2026. Since then the refill has been slow: GIE AGSI+ data tracked by Global Energy Flow put the daily injection rate at roughly 0.21 percentage points as of 23 September, just below the pace needed to reach even the relaxed 80 percent November target.
The European Commission has adjusted the rules to match the circumstances. The original Regulation (EU) 2022/1032 set a binding 90 percent target by 1 November. A provisional political agreement reached on 25 June 2025 kept the 90 percent headline but added a flexibility corridor of up to 10 percentage points and moved the deadline to a window between 1 October and 1 December, according to S&P Global reporting cited by globaloilshock.com. The Netherlands went further, cutting its own national target to 64 percent from 74 percent, Bloomberg reported on 11 September 2026. Revised targets ease the optics; they do not add gas to the ground.
The national picture is uneven. Italy reached 86.3 percent and France 81.6 percent by 24 September, GIE AGSI+ data via Voltstack show. Germany sat at 57.1 percent on the same date, 19.4 points below where it stood a year earlier, gasspeicher.app reports, and well below its September 2024 level of approximately 95.8 percent. The Netherlands stood at 56.8 percent.
Wood Mackenzie's winter assessment, carried by Rigzone on 10 September 2026, puts the end-of-season EU storage level at only 21 percent, the weakest close to a heating season in nearly two decades. Wholesale prices have already moved: TTF crossed 80 euros per MWh for the first time since early 2023 on 9 September 2026, Bloomberg reported. Forecasters disagree on where it goes next. CNBC reported on 27 August 2026 that European prices could exceed 100 euros per MWh this winter; Oxford Economics, cited around the same time via Euronews, put Q4 2026 to Q1 2027 prices closer to 60 euros per MWh.
Qatar, one of the world's largest LNG exporters, has had 2 of 14 trains at Ras Laffan destroyed since a March 18 strike, Global Energy Flow reports, with restart dependent on safe transit through the Strait of Hormuz. Trading Economics commentary cited by globaloilshock.com noted on 11 September 2026 that persistent disruptions to Persian Gulf LNG supplies were affecting roughly a fifth of global LNG flows. Europe is competing for the remainder against Asian buyers, from a storage base 15.7 points below the five-year norm.
A 15.7-point deficit against the five-year average shrinks no faster because the rules were rewritten.
Published September 26, 2026 · Frisian News