Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Belgium all switched to gas offtake from underground storage facilities during weekdays last week (November 3 and 4), according to Gas Infrastructure Europe.
Nevertheless, across the EU as a whole, injection is still slightly higher than growing offtake.
The start of this year's offtake season will be the latest in the history of GIE observations (since 2011). The previous record was set in 2013 (stocks began to decline on November 4).
Gazprom's request for pumping Russian gas through Ukraine has not changed from the previous days and months.
Inventories in UGS facilities are currently at 95.17%, which comes to 102 bcm of active gas, an increase of 0.31 percentage points from the last reporting date, according to Gas Infrastructure Europe data.
At the same time, Gazprom warned that "the load on Europe's UGS facilities will be higher than in previous years due to the changed logistics and sources of gas supply to the European market."
