European Gas Storage Falls 18 Points Below Average as Winter Approaches

Gas storage sites across the European Union held 70.2% of their working capacity on September 24, according to inventory data compiled from the bloc’s AGSI+ reporting system — a shortfall of roughly 17.8 percentage points against the five-year seasonal average of 88% for this point in the injection season. The gap has not closed since early September, when stocks were already sitting at their lowest level for the date since comparable AGSI+ records began in 2011, and it is now showing up directly in front-month gas prices as traders price in a thinner cushion heading into the November-to-March heating season.

A deficit that keeps widening even as storage fills

Storage levels have technically been rising through September, not falling: inventories stood at 65.4% on September 1, climbed to 69.59% by September 19, and reached 70.2% by September 24. But the five-year average curve rises faster at this stage of the season, so the shortfall against that benchmark has actually widened over the same three weeks — from roughly 16 percentage points in mid-September to nearly 18 points by September 24. A year earlier, storage levels were running well above 80% on comparable dates, underscoring how much thinner this year’s buffer is heading into winter.

Prices have tracked the storage gap since June

Dutch TTF front-month prices, the European benchmark, averaged €44.94/MWh in June before crossing €50/MWh by mid-July and €60/MWh by late July, according to futures data tracked on ICE. By mid-September prices had reached roughly €82/MWh, before easing to around €72/MWh in one session this week on renewed hopes for a US-Iran diplomatic breakthrough that traders read as easing regional supply risk. Prices firmed again on September 24, with EU gas quoted near €74/MWh, up about 2.75% on the previous session.

What is keeping storage below trend

Three factors are widely cited by traders and analysts for the persistent gap. Pipeline gas from Russia remains structurally reduced compared with pre-2022 levels, leaving European buyers more reliant on LNG cargoes and other pipeline sources to fill storage — a dependence that also ties European prices more tightly to new supply elsewhere, such as TotalEnergies and AMNI’s newly sanctioned Ima gas field in Nigeria. A hotter-than-usual summer pushed more gas into power generation for air conditioning load, competing directly with injection volumes. And Norwegian pipeline exports — Europe’s largest single supply source since the loss of most Russian pipeline flows — have been running below capacity for stretches of the summer due to planned maintenance at processing plants, trimming the gas available for storage injection at the margin.

A further structural change is due at the start of next year: the European Union’s ban on imports of Russian LNG takes effect on January 1, 2027, removing one of the remaining channels of Russian gas still reaching EU terminals and adding a forward-looking supply-security dimension to this winter’s storage arithmetic even before the ban itself takes hold.

The winter risk analysts are flagging

Morgan Stanley has told clients it expects TTF to average around €85/MWh this winter, but has flagged a scenario in which prices move above €100/MWh if a cold winter coincides with further supply disruption — specifically pointing to the risk of reduced LNG availability from Qatar, one of the two or three largest suppliers into the European market. That scenario would not require a repeat of 2022’s supply shock; European storage economics are sensitive enough at current fill levels that a sustained cold spell alone could be enough to test five-year-average demand against a below-average starting inventory.

For now, the EU’s own target — filling storage to at least 90% ahead of winter under the bloc’s gas storage regulation, with flexibility allowed down to a lower threshold in practice — looks out of reach at the current pace, though EU member states retain some latitude in how strictly that target is enforced country by country. The next several weeks of injection data, along with the outcome of diplomatic efforts affecting Middle East supply routes, will determine how much of the current 18-point gap survives into the first cold snap.

Sources

• AGSI+ (Gas Infrastructure Europe), EU storage inventory data, as of September 24, 2026 — storage fill percentages and five-year average comparison.
• GMK Center, “European gas prices exceeded €80/MWh in September,” September 2026 — TTF price trajectory June–September and Morgan Stanley winter forecast.
• Trading Economics, EU Natural Gas futures data, September 24, 2026 — daily TTF price level and day-on-day move.

Related: Why Are European Gas Prices Rising This Winter? — our living explainer on the TTF market, updated as storage and LNG supply data change. See also our chokepoint tracker: What Happens When the Strait of Hormuz Closes?

Illustrative image. Photo: Arne Müseler, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, via Wikimedia Commons — source