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European Energy Markets
17APR

EU gas storage at 29.55% on 13 April

2 min read
12:44UTC

Aggregate fill moved 0.63 percentage points in four days on AGSI+, on the pace the Commission's reduced November target requires.

EconomicDeveloping
Key takeaway

The EU aggregate is on pace; Germany is the variable that decides whether it holds.

GIE AGSI+ recorded EU aggregate gas storage at 29.55% (334.35 TWh) on 13 April 2026, up from 28.92% on 9 April , a gain of 0.63 percentage points over four days 1. The European Commission has cut the November 2026 mandatory target from the standing 90% to 80% , which still requires roughly 0.67 TWh of net injection per day sustained through to November.

The four-day window ran at approximately 1.8 TWh per day on aggregate, comfortably above the target pace. That headline hides the distribution. Germany was net-withdrawing on 13 April , dragging on the aggregate; the 1.8 TWh/day pace depends on faster injection across peripheral storage estates.

The operational consequence is that the 80% target holds only if Germany flips to sustained net injection inside the next five to seven gas days. Each day the anchor keeps drawing is a day the periphery must inject faster to cover, and the capacity asymmetries on the periphery mirror Germany's at smaller scale: pipelines fill only as fast as they fill. A continued draw late into April is the structural signal that the aggregate number cannot maintain the pace.

Bruegel's refill estimate sits on top of an assumption that all member states flip to net injection on similar calendars. That assumption is under test. The EU Council's cutoff on the 25th then removes around 1.5 bcm per month of potential Russian supply into the same refill window, which makes the aggregate line on AGSI+ the single clearest public indicator of whether the November target is still in reach.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

EU gas storage across all 27 member states combined stood at 29.55% on 13 April, slightly up from 28.92% four days earlier. The target the EU has set for 1 November 2026 is 80%, which was reduced from 90% because the original target looked unachievable given current supply conditions. Getting from 29.55% to 80% requires sustained injections of gas into underground storage throughout summer and autumn. The pace required is tighter than in most previous years because storage started the season at a much lower level. The headline EU number looks slightly better than Germany's national number (23.27%), because other countries like France and Spain are currently injecting faster. But if those countries slow down or Germany takes longer to flip from withdrawal to injection, the EU aggregate will miss target.

What could happen next?
  • Risk

    If Germany remains in net withdrawal until late April, it will fall materially below its national injection trajectory required to contribute proportionally to the EU 80% target, leaving the EU aggregate dependent on southern European injection above their own seasonal norms.

First Reported In

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Gas Infrastructure Europe· 15 Apr 2026
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