Goldman said it expected storage facilities to remain more than 20% full by the end of March next year. Businesses and consumers are also being asked to use less energy. Governments hope to create a gas buffer in case supplies from Russia are cut off through winter. Goldman’s analysts said they expected storage facilities to be 90% full on average by the end of October, before an EU-wide target of 80% full by 1 November. “This is the puzzle Europe has successfully solved for the past year, with a combination of gas demand destruction within Europe and across buyers elsewhere in the world, resulting in above-average inventory builds.”

And while we often hear the question of what this will do to storage, we believe a better approach is to ask what this will do to prices, so that storage continues to build as needed. Goldman Sachs analysts said: “The indefinite reduction in NS1 exports to zero leaves north-west Europe without any Russian gas going forward. This month Gazprom extended the shutdown of gas flows through the pipeline, providing no timeframe for a reopening.

The frenzied dash for supplies has pushed up the wholesale price of gas. European countries have rushed to fill their gas storage facilities before the winter after Russia’s Gazprom reduced supplies, including through the important Nord Stream 1 (NS1) pipeline.

Gold country casino gas prices