EU gas storage has all but stopped filling at 74.9%, a record low for late October, with Austria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic drawing gas out for a second week.

EU underground gas storage, % full on the 26th of each month, 2026 and 2025 against the range for 2011-2025. Source: Gas Infrastructure Europe (AGSI).

EU storage sites were 74.93% full on October 26, according to Gas Infrastructure Europe's AGSI data, up just 0.3 percentage points in a week and 0.7 points since October 15, when the level hit a record mid-October low. The fill rate is eight points below the 82.9% of a year earlier and 14.6 points under the 2021-2025 average for the date of 89.6%.

The EU has struggled to restock all year in a gas crisis worsened by the loss of Qatari LNG cargoes during the Iran conflict. Unless injections recover, its 2026 peak will be the lowest in GIE records going back to 2011: the weakest so far was 77.3%, reached in October 2021 on the eve of the 2022 energy crisis. Prices are already approaching €100 per MWh, the highest in almost four years.

EU sites held 848.8 TWh of gas, about 97 TWh (roughly 9.4bcm) less than a year earlier and the smallest volume for the date since 2013. Storage has been at its lowest for the time of year in the GIE record every month since August.

Austria's storage slipped to 67.8% on October 26 from 69.3% two weeks earlier and Slovakia's to 54.5% from 55.8%, with both countries and the Czech Republic, at 77.2%, net withdrawing in each of the past two weeks. France and Belgium also turned to net withdrawals in the week to October 26. Germany and the Netherlands, at 61.7% and 65.5%, were still injecting, while Italy reached 90.8%.

EU rules set a 90% filling target for member states to meet at any point between October 1 and December 1. In difficult conditions, a member state may decide to deviate by up to 10 percentage points; the regulation also provides for additional deviations in specified circumstances. At 74.9%, reaching even 80% would require another five points of injections as the heating season gets under way.