Gas storage outlook winter 2026/27 · GermanyWill German gas storage last until spring?
Three cases for 1 November, 1 February and 1 April. The middle one carries this month's supply pattern forward, the other two are a poor and a good supply year, and each replays the weather of a named past winter.
In brief
German gas storage was 61% full on gas day 22 October 2026. Provisional AGSI+ value. Over the last 7 days they gained 192 GWh per day on average. Carrying this month's supply pattern forward, they hold 61% on 1 November and run out on 28 March 2027. Until 1 April that case leaves 1 TWh of demand uncovered by storage. If imports return to last winter's level, 17% is left on 1 April. Ending the winter at 10% would take imports of 3,096 GWh per day from December to February, against 3,205 last winter and 3,292 over its best 30 days. Replaying 36 past winters through this supply pattern, storage lasts to spring in 14 of them, and in 30 of them if imports return to last winter's level. These are calculated cases, not forecasts.
What these cases are
These are cases, not forecasts. The case labelled current pattern carries the last 30 days of imports and exports forward on last winter's seasonal shape, and it replays the weather of winter 2007, the median of 36 winters since 1990. It is a continuation, not a most likely outcome. Tested against last winter from this point in the year, that case ended 12.3 percentage points above the outcome, so a low case here is not evidence that the spring will be lower still. The gas balance itself, given the supply and the weather that actually happened, was within 0.2 percentage points by 1 April. The spread across past winters counts what the weather did. It states no probability.
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Questions and answers
- Is there a risk of a gas shortage in winter 2026/27?
- A gas shortage is declared by the federal government under Germany's gas emergency plan, in three levels: early warning, alert and emergency. This page does not forecast a declaration. It shows how far storage reaches under stated supply and weather assumptions. Run through this month's supply pattern, 14 of 36 past winters reach 1 April with gas left in storage, and 30 if imports return to last winter's level. A case that runs storage empty means demand the storage cannot cover; it would have to be met by imports, LNG or lower consumption.
- Will German storage last until spring?
- The page answers that by replaying every winter since 1990 through this week's supply pattern and counting the ones that reach 1 April with gas left. That is a count of past winters, not a probability, and the figure on the page is the current one. Storage running empty in a case means demand beyond what storage can cover, which would be met by imports, LNG or reduced consumption rather than by the storage system alone.
- What does the range across past winters mean?
- Each case replays the daily temperatures of one named past winter, and the band on the chart holds the middle 80% of the outcomes across all of them. It describes what the weather has done since 1990, not how likely this winter is to be cold. Each of the last seven winters was milder than the median of that sample.
- How does Norwegian maintenance affect German storage?
- Norway is Germany's largest pipeline supplier, and outages are announced in advance as urgent market messages. Only outages at the German entry points Dornum and Emden measurably reduce German imports, by about 4.66 GWh per day for each million cubic metres per day of unavailable capacity. The cases subtract those, count planned work in every case, and list upstream outages without subtracting them because no effect on German imports was measurable.
- Do gas prices change the cases?
- No. Three price links were tested on 2023 to 2026 data: industrial demand against TTF, LNG send-out against the JKM–TTF spread, and summer injection against TTF. None held up out of sample, and one changed sign between winters, so no price term enters the cases. Prices are shown as context only.
- How are the cases different from the 14-day forecast?
- The 14-day forecast is a statistical model with a calibrated 80% range. The winter cases are deterministic simulations: each applies stated assumptions for imports, exports and weather to the daily gas balance. They show what those assumptions lead to, not how likely they are.
- What is the physical ceiling?
- The fill level storage could reach with unlimited gas and no demand, injecting at the fastest rate it has sustained for a week at each fill level since 2018. It is not reachable in practice; it shows the limit of the storage itself.