Russia’s Gazprom has emptied its gas storage facilities in western Europe to unusually low levels ahead of the winter, adding to fears that Moscow has exacerbated a shortage of supplies that has boosted prices to a record level.
While European storage levels are low, an analysis of European gas industry data shows the largest shortfalls are at sites owned or controlled by Gazprom, in what critics say increasingly points to an attempt to squeeze European energy supplies.
“The big deficits are where Gazprom facilities are,” said Domenicantonio De Giorgio, adjunct professor of finance at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan, who has analysed data from Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE), an industry body.