It will be very difficult for Europe to refill its gas storage to last year's levels after the continent ended the winter heating season with relatively low stockpiles, Russian natural gas giant Gazprom said on Tuesday.
Gazprom said that as of April 16, Europe storage contained 56.6 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas, down from 58 bcm in the same period of 2020, at the start of COVID-19 pandemic.
In a message on Telegram social media, Gazprom said Europe had been helped by relatively mild weather, which may not be the case next year.
Repeating the filling of storage could become "a non-trivial task" for European companies, Gazprom said.
"This will be very difficult to do, given the politically motivated decisions aimed at refusing to import Russian pipeline gas. The volume of gas available on the European market will be greatly affected by competition for LNG," Gazprom said.
