“Not at the end of its tether, Europe risks running out of gas for the winter of 2023-24, the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned Thursday, calling on governments to “act immediately” in particular to reduce demand.
Some 30 billion cubic meters of gas could well be missing next year, in the event of a complete halt to deliveries from Russia, but also because of the economic rebound of China, which would absorb a large share of liquefied natural gas (LNG), according to calculations by the IEA, which was created by the OECD in 1974 to advise countries on energy matters.
The European reserves would then be filled only to 65% at the beginning of the winter 2023-2024, against 95% today, said its director Fatih Birol to some journalists at a press conference online.
Beware of “overconfidence
“The cushion provided by current reserve levels, along with the recent decline in gas prices and unusually mild temperatures, should not lead to overly optimistic conclusions about the future,” cautions the IEA, which points out that by the summer of 2023 global geopolitical and economic conditions for sourcing and filling reserves are expected to have changed significantly from 2022.
The filling of reserves has benefited this summer from “key factors that may not be repeated in 2023″.
Starting with the position of Russia, whose pipelines delivered almost normal quantities this year in the first half of the year, before deliveries slowed down against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine: ultimately, the country should have supplied the European Union with some 60 billion m3 by 2022.
This will be “highly unlikely” by 2023, notes the IEA, noting that Russian deliveries could even cease altogether.
In addition, China’s lower LNG requirements this year have facilitated European purchases. Global LNG production is set to grow, but only by 20 bcm, and if Chinese imports were to return in 2023 to their 2021 level, they would absorb most of that growth, estimates this analysis, titled “Never too early to prepare for winter 2023-24″.
With prices easing this fall and demand limited by mild weather, “there is a risk of overconfidence creeping in on the subject of gas supply to Europe. But we are by no means out of the woods,” commented Mr. Birol.
Immediate actions
Governments must therefore “take immediate steps to accelerate energy efficiency, the deployment of renewable energies, heat pumps, and any other means of structurally reducing gas demand,” said the economist, who is due to meet several European government representatives on Friday, to sound “the alarm for the coming winter.
The Agency plans to publish soon “a roadmap”, proposing a list of these concrete actions that “would allow to have 95% filled reserves at the beginning of the 2023-24 heating season and to structurally reduce gas consumption during winter”.
