Milder weather has helped ease Europe’s plight so far this winter

Europe’s energy crisis has been a key story since the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and in recent months there has been much concern about how things will play out over the winter. The good news is that the mild weather has helped, meaning fewer homes have turned on the heating this December. Data from Gas Infrastructure Europe showed that German gas storage was 88.2% full on Tuesday, about 1% more than last week. It should be noted that German gas demand fell to a six-week low over the Christmas weekend – just 2.2 TWh per day, according to THE. Why this is important is that Germany is the biggest gas consumer in Europe and since they can keep the reserves high enough, that means less gas shortages. This, in turn, helps reflect lower gas prices, a generally welcome development for households. It is still early days as gas consumption will fall below storage levels during the spring before being replenished in the autumn.

Michael Cooper

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