Business Week: Europe Gas Storage Seen Enough for 45-Day Ukraine Supply Cut
Europe’s mildest winter since 2007 has left the region with enough natural gas in storage to cover any future disruption in flows from Ukraine for about 45 days.
European inventories were 49 percent full as of March 2, from 37 percent a year ago, according to Gas Infrastructure Europe, a lobby group of pipeline operators in Brussels. That’s equal to about 1 1/2 months of imports from pipelines running through Ukraine, said Oswald Clint, a senior analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in London.
“It isn’t very cold, there is gas in storage, I wouldn’t panic,” said Karen Sund, founder of Sund Energy AS, which has advised the International Energy Agency and Centrica Plc on gas markets. “Power generators don’t want it anyway.”