In the midst of its invasion of Ukraine, the European Union began to cut its massive dependence on Russian gas as it maneuvered to ensure energy supply security. After recovering last winter without major supply issues, now it’s time to brace ourselves for the next winter season, when the biggest gas consumption is intensified.
The European Commission and the Twenty-Seven have lifted a shield to protect themselves from Vladimir Putin’s pulse, and measures implemented include mandating member states to gradually fill their gas tanks to ensure supply. Like last year, the Brussels-designed plan requires member states to meet minimum reserve volumes at different times of the year. November 1 warehouses are 90% full of its capacity.
Spain has already achieved this Tuesday exceeding this level of 90% six months before the mandatory period Brussels has made its mark, after accelerating further gas injections in recent weeks. Three Spanish underground warehouses were stored Equivalent to 30,700 gigawatt hours (GWh) It anticipates semi-annual EU requirements, as confirmed by the records of Enagás, operator of the Spanish gas system, which updates this data daily.
Energy companies have triggered gas injections from Spanish storage facilities in recent weeks. Just a month ago, Spanish reserves stood at 77%, and refills by these companies at that time resulted in a rapid 12% increase in occupancy.
Also, Spain has tanks of an extensive network of regasification plants (concentrating one-third of all regasification capacity in the EU) and currently 73% full with its capacity, According to this newspaper’s estimate based on Enagás records, 16,785 GWh. In total, the total Spanish reserves make it possible to cover more than 40 days of total gas consumption.
Come with cold waves
The two cold periods that hit Spain several weeks apart (end of January and beginning of March) resulted in an increase in natural gas consumption well above the forecast for normal weather conditions. Enagás arrived twice in a month to activate ‘extraordinary work’ due to the increase in gas demand by households and companies caused by the general drop in temperatures.
The extraordinary increase in gas consumption caused by cold weather, together with less gas injection into tanks, has caused gas operators to use up some of their accumulated reserves more quickly. Underground tanks fell below 80% for the first time in seven months, after consuming 15% of all stored gas in a month.
Three Spanish underground tanks reached an occupancy level of over 96.6% with a maximum of 34 TWh in November, causing Enagás to delay some gas inputs into the system. The operator has suspended tenders for a few days to inject gas into the underground storage tanks and has activated a preventive mechanism to delay ship evacuation if necessary due to high occupancy at the regasification plants.