Gazprom does not fill up German gas storage facilities

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Compressor station in Slovakia

Photo: DPA

Russia's state-owned company Gazprom has apparently not kept the Kremlin's promise to refill its gas storage facilities in Germany from November 8th - and thus to ease Europe's gas crisis.

As data from the industry association Gas Infrastructure Europe show, the German reservoirs of Gazprom subsidiary Astora have even emptied further since the reporting date.

The average fill level has dropped from 22 to 18 percent.

By far the largest Astora storage facility in Rehden, Lower Saxony, is only seven percent full.

In contrast, the reservoirs of all other larger operators are at least two-thirds full.

At the end of October, in a televised cabinet meeting, Russian President Vladimir Putin asked Gazprom boss Alexei Miller to replenish the stores in Germany and Austria from November 8th.

In fact, the opposite has happened.

What role does Nord Stream 2 play

This increases concerns on Europe's gas markets about a possible bottleneck in winter.

Gazprom has been delivering noticeably little fuel to the west for months - even though the prices here are extremely high.

The state-owned company is suspected of wanting to exert pressure to obtain an early release of the Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea pipeline.

Putin had announced that he would increase gas deliveries to Europe as soon as Nord Stream 2 was operational.

However, it will take some time.

The Federal Network Agency has stopped the certification process for the time being.

According to the EU gas market directive, the production, transport and sale of natural gas must not be carried out by the same company;

In the opinion of the regulators, this could possibly be the case with Nord Stream 2.

It will therefore probably take months before it is released - if it is done at all.

In response to a request from SPIEGEL, Astora explains that, as an operator of gas storage facilities, "due to legal requirements, you have no influence on customer behavior and fill levels."

In the meantime, the uncertainty is driving prices in European wholesaling further up.

On Friday, a megawatt hour of natural gas on the Dutch reference market TTF cost more than 100 euros at times.

A year ago it was around 16 euros.

More than 700 gas suppliers in Germany have already increased their end customer prices or have announced that they will.