Gas reserves in Germany decreased to 64% as imports from Russia hit Zero since January 2023

Natural gas stocks reserve in Germany fell during the past week ending March 11 to 160.8 TWh.

According to data from the European Gas Utilities Authority, the percentage of gas in German storage facilities amounted to 64%, which is higher than the average recorded in the same period during the past five years, which amounted to 40%.

A week ago, the proportion of natural gas stored in facilities in Germany was 68% of capacity of the countries listed below, Germany and France recorded the largest changes in one week, measured in TWh.

French storage facilities were the least full on a percentage basis, while Hungarian storage levels were the least full when compared to the 5-year average for this time of year.

France had the second lowest saturation rate compared to the 5-year average.

Warehousing facilities in Austria and the Netherlands were higher than the seasonal average over the past five years.

The German Federal Statistics Office announced, on Monday, that the last 3,500 tons of Russian natural gas arrived in Germany last January, which means that supplies of the vital material reached zero in the aforementioned month.

In a report, the government office compared Russian natural gas supplies to Germany in January of last year and the same month of this year, saying that Germany imported in the aforementioned month of 2022 2.8 million tons of Russian natural gas, which means, in light of these numbers, that Germany’s imports were recorded last January, a decrease of 99.9%.

According to the new data, Germany relied in January of last year by 36.5% of its natural gas supplies on Russia, while the proportion of Russian natural gas imported by Germany in January of this year was only 0.1%.

Germany compensated for these huge quantities by importing gas from Norway by 987,000 tons, an increase of 44%, and from the United Kingdom by 959,000 tons, an increase of 42%, and from Kazakhstan by 928,000, an increase of 34%.

The embargo imposed by Germany within the framework of European sanctions against Russia because of its war in Ukraine included preventing the import of Russian oil, starting 2023.

Since the outbreak of the Ukrainian war in February of last year, the European Union has been imposing sanctions on Russia, to which the Russian leadership responded by imposing counter-sanctions that led to a rise in energy prices around the world.