Russia holds back a third of gas in the European direction - IEA head

The head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), Fatih Birol , believes that Russia is holding back gas supplies to Europe in a geopolitical context. According to him, Gazprom could increase them by a third instead of emptying underground storage facilities.

“We believe that to a large extent the shortage in the European gas market is caused by the actions of Russia,” said Birol. - I note that the current low level of supplies coincides with the growth of geopolitical tensions around Ukraine. The main thing is that Russia could increase supplies by at least a third.”

The head of the IEA pointed out that the low occupancy of European UGS facilities (about 50% compared to the usual level of 70% at this time) is mainly due to Gazprom. “The shortage of reserves in the European UGS facilities of the company is responsible for 50% of the shortage of reserves in the EU, although the volume of Gazprom's storage facilities is only 10% of the European one,” Birol noted.

• Today "Gazprom" reported that Europe has selected from underground storage more than half of the gas pumped last year - 55.6% or 26.6 billion cubic meters on January 10. The spot price of gas in Europe remains at the level of $900 per thousand cubic meters - much lower than the peak, but many times higher than the long-term values.