Carole Le Henaff
OIES researcher; co-authored storage resilience paper arguing EU gas storage is a strategic security baseline.
Last refreshed: 4 May 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
Should EU gas storage policy be treated as a security mandate, not a market mechanism?
Timeline for Carole Le Henaff
Co-authored storage resilience paper with Samia Adel
European Energy Markets: OIES frames Iran shock as multi-year- What is the OIES position on European gas storage as a security baseline?
- OIES researchers Carole Le Henaff and Samia Adel argued in Issue 148 (April 2026) that storage resilience is the foundational security baseline for European energy policy, not a market buffer. Under this framing, a November 2026 landing below 80% is a structural security failure.Source: Oxford Energy Forum Issue 148
- Why did Oxford researchers argue that the Cyprus European Council storage decision was insufficient?
- The Le Henaff/Adel storage-as-baseline framework implies the Cyprus Council's coordination language, which was not backed by a mandatory injection mechanism, addresses the symptom rather than the structural security risk. Consumer-relief tools do not increase injection pace.Source: Oxford Energy Forum Issue 148
Background
Carole Le Henaff is a researcher at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. She co-authored the storage resilience paper in Oxford Energy Forum Issue 148, 'Global Gas: Battling the Next Crisis', published in April 2026, alongside OIES contributor Samia Adel. Their paper argues that gas storage resilience should be treated as the foundational security baseline for European energy policy, elevating storage fill above the status of a market variable to a strategic requirement.
Le Henaff's contribution adds to the OIES institutional consensus that the current disruption cycle requires structural policy responses rather than market-reliant injection. The storage-as-baseline argument directly challenges the approach taken at the Cyprus European Council of April 2026, which endorsed storage coordination language without attaching a mandatory injection mechanism. Under the Le Henaff/Adel framing, consumer-relief tools like the AccelerateEU package address symptoms rather than the structural security risk.
Her co-authorship positions her within the OIES group arguing for a multi-year policy horizon on European energy security, aligned with Bill Farren-Price's introduction framing the Iran shock as structurally comparable to the 1970s disruptions.
