The Moscow Times: The Kremlin's Plan Failed

The EU has completed the heating season with record gas reserves, Brussels does not need Gazprom.

For the second year in a row, the EU nations ended the heating season with record gas reserves, The Moscow Times writes.

Meanwhile, Gazprom's supplies to Europe fell by more than five times compared to the pre-war level.

The heating season in the EU ended on March 31, and stocks in storage facilities amounted to 58.7%, according to Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE). This is the highest volume in history – higher than a year ago, when Europeans, frightened by the shutdown of Russian gas, sharply reduced its use both in industry and at the consumer level.

Two warm winters and a radical restructuring of the supply system helped to cope with a possible shortage. Liquefied natural gas has become the main source of supply, overtaking pipelines, and the main supplier that replaced Russia is the United States: now they provide almost half of European LNG imports against about a quarter before the outbreak of the war.

Gazprom's deliveries to Europe amounted to 28 billion cubic meters last year (at the level of the second half of the 1970s) against more than 150 billion cubic meters in pre-war 2021.

Only two of the five pipelines pump gas to Europe now. At the same time, in February, Austrian Energy Minister Leonore Gewessler said that the country, whose gas imports are provided by Russia for more than three quarters, is considering the possibility of terminating the contract with Gazprom. In case of implementation of Ukraine's intention to refuse to extend the transit agreement in 2025, Gazprom will have one working pipe – to southern Europe through Turkey.

Since the most acute moment of the energy crisis, gas in the EU has fallen in price by almost 14 times. The price of the Dutch TTF futures, which in August 2022 at the peak exceeded 340 euros/MWh (more than $3,600 per 1,000 cubic meters), has been fluctuating around the mark of 25 euros since the beginning of February this year.