The European gas market starts 2026 with historically low storage levels. A prolonged cold spell at the beginning of the year would necessitate a significantly higher utilization of LNG terminals.
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Low Storage Levels increase dependency on LNG Imports
The European gas market entered the year 2026 with an aggregate storage level of only 61 percent. With the exception of the crisis year 2022, this is below the values of the preceding years 2016 to 2025. A simultaneous cold spell in the USA and Europe has already led to massive price spikes in January at the Henry Hub (+70 percent) and the European TTF (+40 percent).
The current brief analysis “Outlook for the European Gas Market in 2026” by the Institute of Energy Economics at the University of Cologne (EWI) examines the impact of this dynamics on security of supply and the necessary import volumes for the remainder of the year. The analysis considers a normal winter as a reference scenario as well as a cold winter scenario. Both scenarios are based on the ENTSO-G Winter Supply Outlook.
High Utilization of LNG Import Terminals May Be Required
The analysis shows that if the cold period lasts until the end of March, gas demand could increase by up to 120 TWh. In order to avoid falling below a critical storage level of 10 percent at the end of the heating season in this scenario, European LNG import terminals would need to increase their utilization to up to 90 percent.
“To then bring European gas storage back to the EU target level of 90 percent by the start of the next heating season, a continuously high utilization of import terminals of more than 80 percent would be required starting in April,” says Dr.-Ing. Ann-Kathrin Klaas, Head of Research Area at EWI, who conducted the analysis together with Hendrik Diers. “This would be significantly higher than the average utilization of 58 percent in the previous year.”
Global Competition for Spot Market Volumes
Although the necessary infrastructure is already available due to the expansion of European LNG import capacities to around 2,000 TWh/a over the past four years, procuring the volumes remains a question of willingness to pay. Since only about 30 percent of European LNG demand is secured through long-term contracts, the majority of the volumes would have to be purchased on the global spot market. “Europe is in direct competition with the Asian market here,” Klaas continues. “While new global export capacities have a price-dampening effect, the high local demand for storage refilling is expected to support price levels in Europe.”
