* High storage levels serve to calm market concerns
* THE CEO: Would not intervene if fill targets were met.
* Believes other origins may compensate for the end of Russian gas transit.
* Plenty of LNG receiving capacity around European coasts
(Adds context, winter preview, commentary on possible end of Russian gas transit through Ukraine in paragraphs 4-11)
FRANKFURT, June 26 (Reuters) – Germany’s natural gas caverns, at just over 79% capacity, are not far from legally required fill levels for the upcoming 2024/25 winter, an industry executive said .
“Underground inventories are currently well filled,” said Torsten Frank, head of Trading Hub Europe (THE), which coordinates a quarter of the storage capacity under government mandate, sending calming price signals to wholesale markets.
Germany’s storage facilities, with a capacity of 23 billion cubic meters (bcm), were 79.04 percent full on Monday, according to industry data.
THE, owned by pipeline companies, was commissioned by the Berlin Government in 2022, when Germany and much of Europe were mostly cut off from Russian gas, to create a state reserve of emergency volumes up to 50 terawatt hours (TWh), to integrate the activities of private companies.
The company subsequently sold all volumes by mid-May 2024, but will continue to purchase and release gas to the market until 2027, if necessary, to ensure compliance with minimum storage levels required by law, it said.
The levels are not far from compliance, with 85% and 95% required by October 1 and November 1, respectively.
“If these goals are achieved, THE does not need to take any action,” Frank, one of the Ratingen company’s four CEOs, said in an interview with Reuters on Tuesday and published on Wednesday.
If Russian pipeline transit through Ukraine to Austria stops starting next January, Frank said he believes the European market could supplement volume losses with pipelines or liquefied natural gas (LNG) from other regions to Northern Europe or the Mediterranean.
“There is sufficient capacity of LNG terminals and the corresponding southward transportation capacities from northwestern Europe have been upgraded,” he said.
Ukraine has said it will not extend a five-year deal with Russia’s Gazprom on the transit of Russian gas to Europe when it expires at the end of the year.
The European Union also adopted a package of sanctions against Moscow that aim to reduce Russia’s revenue from LNG exports by banning transshipments from EU ports, which have continued as most gas supplies through pipelines have it is sold out.
“There are many LNG suppliers, so sufficient volumes could be transported to Europe even in the event of a potential Russian LNG import ban,” he said. (Report by Vera Eckert – Editorial team Madeline Chambers, Miranda Murray and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
