EU gas storage at record low as prices triple in 2026

European natural gas prices have roughly tripled since January and EU storage is at its lowest level for this time of year since records began, Euronews reported Oct. 27, raising the cost of heating for millions of households this winter.

The Dutch TTF benchmark, Europe’s main gas price, stood near €96 per megawatt-hour on Monday after briefly touching €97.64, its highest since December 2022, Euronews reported. It began the year at about €28, a rise of roughly 234 per cent. Futures for winter 2026-27 trade near €95, against a last-winter average of about €36.

EU storage was 74.6 per cent full on Oct. 24, compared with 82.9 per cent a year earlier and 98.5 per cent in 2023, according to figures from the Bruegel think-tank cited by Euronews. The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) said it is the lowest for the time of year since records began in 2011. A separate market analysis published Oct. 26 by Discovery Alert, citing Gas Infrastructure Europe data, put storage at 74.6 per cent on Oct. 25, about 14 percentage points below the roughly 89 per cent five-year seasonal average. That analysis said its figures were not independently verified.

Refilling has stalled. Daily changes were close to zero in the week to Oct. 24, Euronews reported, and some countries have started drawing on winter stocks. Austria’s storage stood at 67.2 per cent, down from 69.3 per cent in mid-October and well below the 84 per cent of a year ago.

Euronews linked the price surge to the war with Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which cut off supply from Qatar. Bruegel data cited in the report show Middle Eastern LNG made up about eight per cent of EU liquefied natural gas imports last year, and none has arrived since May. Russian LNG made up about one-fifth of EU LNG imports in the second quarter, and the EU will ban it completely from January 2027. Asian buyers are also bidding for the replacement cargoes.

“Wind output and temperatures will determine how tight Europe’s gas supply becomes this winter and how high prices go,” said Ana Maria Jaller-Makarewicz, lead energy analyst for Europe at IEEFA. “Demand reduction remains the biggest lever within Europe’s control,” she said.

Tom Marzec-Manser, director for Europe gas and LNG at Wood Mackenzie, said a cold winter, which is not the consensus because of El Niño, could push storage lower still. “This does mean wholesale gas prices will remain high in Europe during much of this time,” he said. Wood Mackenzie forecasts EU storage at 17 to 20 per cent full by the end of March, assuming a normal winter and an end to the conflict this year. Marzec-Manser said the global LNG market may not return to balance until autumn 2028, even if the war ends by year-end.

The pain will reach household bills. Euronews estimated that the roughly six euro cents per kilowatt-hour added to gas costs would add about €600 over the heating season, from November to March, for a typical gas-heated home using 10,000 kilowatt-hours, or about €715 with 20 per cent value-added tax. Those are the outlet’s own estimates. Residential gas averaged 11.9 cents per kilowatt-hour across EU capitals in early September, 12 per cent above February, according to the Household Energy Price Index cited in the report. Fixed-price contracts and regulated tariffs can delay the increase.

IEEFA said the EU may need about seven per cent less gas than last winter, including the effect of the Russian LNG ban. EU gas demand fell 17.7 per cent between 2021 and 2025, Euronews reported.

For Canadians, the squeeze matters in three ways. It adds to inflation across the euro zone, where annual inflation reached 3.8 per cent in September as energy prices jumped, and the European Central Bank is expected to hold at 2.5 per cent on Oct. 29. It raises costs for Canadians living in or visiting Europe this winter. And it sharpens the debate over Canadian LNG: projects such as Woodfibre LNG, which a recent study pegged at $13.6 billion in output, sit on the Pacific coast. Our earlier report on how Europe could face a gas shortfall of up to 15 per cent in a severe winter set out the risk that these storage figures now bring closer.

What to watch next: weekly storage data from Gas Infrastructure Europe, whether Brussels sets a shared demand-reduction framework, and the ECB decision on Oct. 29.

Via Euronews (Piero Cingari, Oct. 27) and Discovery Alert (Oct. 26).

If you find reporting like this useful, consider supporting Canada News Media, an independent Canadian newsroom with no corporate parent.