Germany Can’t Rule Out Gas Shortage Next Winter, Regulator Says

By Bloomberg

Mar 18, 2023

image is BloomburgMedia_RRPIKRDWRGG001_19-03-2023_11-00-09_638147808000000000.jpg

Vapor rises from a chimney at the Mitte Combined Heat and Power (CHP) natural gas power plant, operated by Vattenfall AB, near the River Spree in Berlin, Germany, on Saturday, Feb. 4, 2023. Traders will be looking to key data on the German economy next week including January’s preliminary inflation data and industrial production figures. Photographer: Jacobia Dahm/Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Germany has avoided a gas shortage this winter but “things could be different” next year and there’s no time for complacency, a top energy regulator said.

“We can’t rule out a gas shortage situation for next winter,” Klaus Mueller, president of the federal network agency BNetzA, told the Rheinische Post.

“The risk factors are that the winter of 2023-24 will be very cold, that households and companies will save too little, that the LNG terminals will not work as planned,” Mueller told the newspaper.

Mueller urged Germans to continue saving gas to help fill up storage facilities over the summer, and said he’d be “happy” if Germany still had well over 50% in storage by May 1, compared with about 64% now.

Above-normal temperatures are forecast for northwestern Europe next week as the heating season draws to a close. That will ease pressure on storage sites, which typically switch to net injections in early April. Europe’s benchmark front-month gas contract settled 3.4% lower on Friday, slumping 19% for the week.

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By Rainer Buergin