EU Obliges Member States To Fill Gas Storage Sites At 90% By November 2023

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 24th November, 2022) The European Commission on Thursday set an obligation for EU member states to fill their underground gas facilities at 90% by November 1, 2023 to avoid possible supply disruptions and spikes in demand.

"The Gas Storage Regulation sets an obligation for Member States to fill their gas storage facilities at 90% by 1 November 2023 ... A sufficiently filled EU gas storage contributes to security of supply and market stability, making our energy system more fit to face disruptions in supply and spikes in demand," the commission said in a statement.

As of November 16, the European Union had approximately 104 billion cubic meters of natural gas in its storage facilities.

The European gas storage sites were filled up to 96.61% for the new heating season.

On October 18, the European Commission proposed a new package of measures to fight increasing energy prices, which include mandatory joint purchases of 13.5 billion cubic meters of gas. The measure has been designed to fill EU storage facilities by the winter of 2023-2024, establish a mechanism to limit excessively high prices at the Dutch Title Transfer Facility gas exchange when needed, and create a price benchmark for the LNG market.