German gas storage injections could slow on 'surprising' Nord Stream work: Muller

Injections into German gas storage sites could slow during the unplanned three-day maintenance shutdown of the Nord Stream pipeline from Russia, the head of the German energy regulator Bundesnetzagentur said late Aug. 22.

Bundesnetzagentur President Klaus Muller said on Twitter that German storage sites continued to be filled and had passed another milestone, with facilities now more than 80% full.

"German gas storage sites are being continuously filled and have passed another milestone at 80.14%," Muller said. But, he said: "The surprising maintenance of Nord Stream could temporarily dampen the filling."

Gazprom late Aug. 19 said it would close Nord Stream from Aug. 31 until Sept. 2 to carry out maintenance work on the final operational turbine at the Portovaya compressor station.

Germany has set itself strict gas storage filling targets -- well beyond those imposed at EU level -- with a level of 85% fullness required by Oct. 1 and 95% by Nov. 1.

Concerns over European gas storage, and more recently further Russian gas supply constraints, have seen European gas prices hit record highs.

The Dutch TTF month-ahead price reached an all-time high of Eur285.08/MWh on Aug. 22, a sixth consecutive day of fresh record highs, according to Platts price assessments by S&P Global Commodity Insights.

Germany has been badly affected by the reduction in Russian gas deliveries via Nord Stream, which are currently running at just 20% capacity, forcing German buyers of Russian gas to seek more expensive replacement volumes.

LNG imports

Muller said, however, that the high prices should continue to attract LNG to the European market. "As painful as the high gas prices are, they also allow an inflow of LNG to the EU," he said.

High prices in Europe have seen strong LNG imports through 2022, partly offsetting the lower Russian flows.

However, Germany currently has no LNG import infrastructure of its own, limiting its ability to secure additional gas volumes.

The government has though chartered four floating LNG import terminals, with two to be deployed by the end of 2022 at Wilhelmshaven and Brunsbuttel.

Two others are expected to be prepared by the end of 2023 at Stade and Lubmin, while a fifth privately-based FSRU is to be deployed at Lubmin by end-2022.

To guarantee supply for the first two FSRUs at Wilhelmshaven and Brunsbuttel, the German government is expected to soon sign binding contracts with utilities Uniper, RWE and EnBW that will oblige the companies to make use of all the capacity in two FSRUs.

This, the government said, would guarantee LNG supply into the two terminals until March 2024.

Germany has also taken a number of other measures to mitigate the gas crisis ahead of the upcoming winter.

It has cut VAT on gas use from 19% to 7%, provided loans to the THE market manager to buy gas and bailed out Uniper.

Click here to view a new section of the Atlas of Energy Transition, where you can explore existing and planned LNG import facilities as Europe races to secure floating LNG storage.