Europe is going into winter with the emptiest gas tanks on record

The number

Europe stores gas in summer to burn in winter. The stores are tracked daily by Gas Infrastructure Europe, and the figure everyone watches is how full they are on 1 November, when the heating season starts in earnest.

On 18 October the EU's storage was 74.6% full. A year earlier on the same day it was 82.8%. The five-year average for the date is 89.1%, so this year sits about 14.5 points below it, under the lowest reading of the past five years.

The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis put it more bluntly on 9 October. At about 72% full in early October, this was the lowest level for the time of year since records began in 2011.

Figure 1 puts the three numbers side by side: this year, last year and the five-year average on the same October day.

How it got this low

Last winter was colder than recent ones, and the stores were drawn down hard. By early April they were about 27% full, the bottom of the range since 2017. Withdrawals in the winter of 2024 to 2025 were already 50% higher than in the two winters before.

Then the refill ran into the Gulf. Shipping disruption through the Strait of Hormuz trapped almost a fifth of the world's liquefied natural gas, most of it bound for Asia. European gas prices have jumped more than 150% this year, and the cargoes that once came to Europe went to higher-paying Asian buyers instead.

Brussels saw it coming. The Commission relaxed its storage target for this winter from 90% to 80%, and analysts expect the stores to reach only 75% to 78% by 1 November, about ten points below the five-year average.

Why a storage percentage reaches your bill

Storage is Europe's main cushion. It met about 26% of the EU's gas consumption last winter and about 30% the winter before. A thinner cushion means every cold week and every delayed tanker shows up faster in the price.

Gas sets the price of electricity in much of Europe for many hours of the year, so a gas squeeze is also a power bill. It is a factory cost too: the first customers asked to cut back in a shortage are the energy-intensive plants.

What the grid operators say

ENTSOG, the body for Europe's gas network operators, published its winter outlook on 8 October. In a normal winter, it says, Europe can get through without cutting demand, leaning on about 145 billion cubic metres of capacity to take in liquefied gas by ship.

In a particularly cold winter, with the remaining Russian pipeline flows disrupted and a tight global market, Europe may need to cut gas demand by up to 15%. Even under normal conditions, a squeeze on shipped gas could drive storage down to 13% by March 2027.

The Commission's reading the same day was calmer: the system is prepared for the winter despite the lower storage levels. Both can be true. The outcome depends on weather and ships, not on anything Brussels decides now.

The cost of filling the gap

The institute's estimate is that the EU may need to use 7% less gas this winter than last. Covering the shortfall with extra imports instead would cost about 3 billion euros, 12% more than the same volume would have cost in 2025, because the war has pushed prices up.

And one more source goes away mid-winter. The EU's full ban on Russian liquefied gas takes effect from January 2027, right when the stores are being drawn down fastest.

Where the weak spots are

The EU figure hides big differences, as Figure 2 shows. On 18 October Italy's stores were 89.9% full and France's 87.7%. Germany's were 61.2% and the Netherlands' 64.6%. Germany is the largest gas market in the bloc, so its number matters most.

If the winter is only average, the analysts at LSEG expect northwest European stores to fall to around 20% by the start of April. If the Strait of Hormuz stays closed for long, the pressure then moves to next summer's refill, which starts from an even lower base.

What to watch

We played out twelve worlds on where the EU figure lands on 1 January and what a buyer deciding now should watch for. That brief is linked below.

• The AGSI storage reading on 1 November, and Germany's own number beside it.
• The weather outlook for the back half of December, when a cold stretch does the most damage.
• Any move by the Commission toward emergency demand cuts or gas transfers between member states.
• Tanker traffic through Hormuz: a reopening sends cargoes back toward Europe; a closure sends them to Asia.

Sources

• Gas Infrastructure Europe's AGSI data, read through the ENGIE EnergyScan and Voltstack trackers (gas days 13 and 18 October 2026).
• IEEFA, "EU may need to cut winter gas demand by 7% with gas storage at a record seasonal low", 9 October 2026.
• ENTSOG's 2026-2027 Winter Supply Outlook, 8 October 2026, as reported by S&P Global and Euronews; the European Commission's statement of the same day.
• Reuters, "Europe set for another year of high gas prices as reserves hit lows", 12 October 2026.
• EPRINC, "European Natural Gas Inventories: A Record-Low Buffer Entering Winter", 21 August 2026.