EU NG storage was never built to hold the continent over for a winter, absent outside gas flows.
It was built (by Russian Gazprom) to even out the flows through the pipelines, like a buffer in an air compression or water pumping system.
It’s not like the American SPR, which was meant (Before Biden sold it off) to last the USA for many months during a total cutoff of foreign petroleum imports.
Instead, it’s just a buffer system, because obviously (to those with 3 digit IQs) Russian NG pipelines cannot just be manifolded directly from Russia to European homes and factories.
Insert big “DUH!” here.
(But I’m not surprised this comes as a surprise to you.)
EU won’t rely on just nat gas from storage.
EU will continue to get nat gas piped in from several countries plus LNG.
Good points.
It’s hard to create a product out of thin air when enough for allcan’t be supplied in time.