NATGAS: Europe Has Made Good Progress to Prepare for Winter Gas Demand: EC

Europe has made "good" progress to be prepared for peak winter demand despite the expected expiry of the gas transit agreement between Ukraine and Russia at year end, the EC's deputy director-general for energy told S&P Global.

• "The situation is as good as it has been in previous years," said Matthew Baldwin,
• "Since the crisis in 2022, we're working extremely hard to ensure that we are delivering gas security in Europe," Baldwin said.
• "We are using storage where we set this obligation to have a minimum of 90% fill rate each year," he said. "And that is a very important source of assurance and insurance to the gas market in Europe that we covered."
• "We've also taken measures to reduce our demand, 18% on average across the board,” he added and with record amounts of renewables into the power system.
• "We've had extraordinary new amounts of LNG coming in from the United States. Norway is now our predominant pipeline supplier," he said.
• The next commission will decide whether to maintain the market intervention measures including a gas price cap, joint purchasing, demand reduction targets and storage obligations.