Europe’s low gas reserves and Ukraine’s ruined power plants augur a hard winter

Natural-gas storage across the European Union stood at roughly 54–58 percent of capacity in early August, the second-lowest summer level since records began in 2011 and the lowest July figure since 2021.

That shortfall arrives at a moment when the war between the United States, Israel and Iran continues to disrupt shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, choking off a significant share of the liquefied natural gas that Europe now relies upon after cutting most of its long-term pipeline contracts with Moscow. At the same time, Ukraine faces the prospect of a winter with virtually no intact thermal power plants, the result of relentless Russian missile and drone strikes that have damaged the country’s energy system. Together these pressures threaten higher prices, constrained supplies and renewed hardship for households and industries already weary from years of geopolitical shock.

The numbers paint a stark picture. According to data from Gas Infrastructure Europe, stocks sit about twelve percentage points below the level recorded at the same point last year and sixteen points beneath the five-year historical average. Germany, the bloc’s largest consumer and the holder of more than one-fifth of total EU storage capacity, has filled only 47 percent of its facilities, the lowest reading since records started. Traders and utilities normally buy gas cheaply in summer, inject it into underground caverns and depleted fields, and sell it at a premium when winter demand rises.

That commercial logic has broken down. Summer prices remain elevated because of the Hormuz disruption and residual effects of earlier heat waves, leaving little incentive to store. The market is in backwardation: near-term gas costs more than gas for delivery months ahead. Companies therefore see scant financial reason to fill tanks now.

Market orthodoxy meets a distorted reality

Berlin’s response has been notably restrained. The federal energy ministry continues to insist that restocking remains the responsibility of private companies and traders. Directing state-controlled firms such as SEFE and Uniper to buy at current prices, officials argue, would only tighten the market further and push prices higher. Yet the hands-off stance leaves Germany well short of the revised European target of 80 percent fill by December, itself a reduction from the original 90 percent goal introduced after the 2022 crisis. Sebastian Heinermann of the German storage association INES has described the levels as not merely low for the season but historically low, warning that market incentives have largely evaporated. Analysts at Aurora Energy Research note that reaching even the lowered target would require near-record injection rates, something that may prove impossible without government intervention.

The broader European picture is only marginally better. The European Commission maintains that an 80 percent fill rate would still secure winter supplies and remains technically achievable. Independent forecasts are less sanguine. Rapidan Energy and other consultancies project that stocks may peak between 65 and 76 percent before the heating season begins. David Lewis of Wood Mackenzie has called the situation “very risky.” A prolonged cold spell could force either demand curtailment or acceptance of sharply higher prices. Energy Aspects estimates that if Hormuz traffic resumes, winter prices could settle between 60 and 80 euros per megawatt-hour. Should Qatari supplies remain offline and temperatures fall below normal, the average from November to March might climb toward 110 euros, with storage potentially dropping to 10 percent by the end of March.

Europe is better prepared in some respects than it was four years ago. Overall gas consumption has declined, renewable generation has expanded, and a rapid build-out of LNG import terminals has given the continent more routes for seaborne cargoes. Yet that very shift has created a new vulnerability. Long-term pipeline contracts once provided a degree of price stability. Spot LNG cargoes go to the highest bidder and are highly sensitive to Asian demand and to any further interruption of Middle Eastern exports. The loss of roughly one-fifth of global LNG that normally transits Hormuz has intensified competition precisely when Europe needs to restock.

Ukraine’s energy system on the brink

While European governments debate storage targets and market mechanisms, Ukraine confronts a more immediate and physical crisis. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, speaking in Belgrade on 9 August, stated that Russian strikes have left the country with virtually no working thermal power plants. Those facilities form a critical complement to nuclear generation, especially during the cold months when electricity demand for heating surges. Overnight attacks in the Kyiv region killed four people, including a three-year-old child, and the broader pattern of long-range missile and drone assaults continues to target energy infrastructure with deliberate precision. Zelenskyy described the strikes as aimed at making Ukrainian lives unbearable. Frontline communities have also suffered repeated shelling, adding to civilian casualties.

The destruction compounds an already fragile situation. After more than four years of full-scale war, Ukraine’s grid has absorbed successive waves of damage. Moscow has escalated its use of ballistic missiles that are difficult to intercept, while Kyiv has responded with record numbers of drones against Russian targets. Western air-defense systems remain in short supply relative to the volume of incoming threats. Zelenskyy has renewed calls for tougher sanctions to interrupt the flow of missile components into Russia and for greater access to interceptors.

The two crises are linked by more than calendar. Europe’s reduced dependence on Russian pipeline gas was intended to isolate Moscow and starve its war effort of revenue. The planned phase-out of remaining Russian LNG imports by the end of the year continues that strategy. Yet the resulting exposure to global LNG markets has left European storage more vulnerable to a Middle Eastern conflict that has little direct connection to the fighting in Ukraine. Higher wholesale prices will eventually appear in household bills and industrial costs across the continent, even if outright shortages are avoided. For Ukrainians the stakes are more elemental: keeping lights and heat available through a winter in which critical generating capacity has been systematically degraded.

Prices are already elevated and the weather remains an unknown variable. In both cases the margin for error has narrowed, and the consequences of miscalculation will be measured in colder homes, higher costs and continued civilian suffering.

Source: EU Perspectives, New York Times, Politico, Reuters, France 24

Caption: The underground gas storage facility in Grijpskerk, The Netherlands, 25 March 2026. Dutch gas reserves have shrunk to 5.8 percent. That is the lowest level in ten years. The largest gas reserve, in Norg in Drenthe, is virtually empty. The reserves in Alkmaar and Grijpskerk are filled to less than 1 percent. EPA/Jilmer Postma