31JUL

Oxford puts EU gas at 67% on 1 November

3 min read

09:24UTC

Jack Sharples and Ricky Hill told a 27 July presentation that EU-27 stocks reach 72 bcm on 1 November if injections match 2024, the lowest first-of-November level since 2012.

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Key takeaway

OIES and Centrica see EU stocks at their lowest 1 November level since 2012.

Jack Sharples of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies and Ricky Hill of Centrica presented "European Storage Refill in Summer 2026" on Monday 27 July, putting EU-27 stocks at 72 bcm, or 67% full, on 1 November if injections from 22 July match the same period in 2024 ¹. That would be the lowest 1 November level since 2012.

OIES is the Oxford-based energy research institute whose storage work is widely used as a reference case by European gas traders; Centrica owns Rough, Britain's largest storage facility, and buys into the same continental market. Their inputs are stated: EU-27 stocks stood at 52 bcm on 1 July, 10.6 bcm below the same date last year, and net injections over 1 to 22 July already ran 1.4 bcm behind 2025 ².

What gives the projection its weight is where it sits against their own earlier work. The OIES base case of 74.3 bcm was invalidated in June by the Strait of Hormuz round-trip , and 72 bcm sits below even that already-downgraded scenario. A modelling house revising downward twice in six weeks is describing a summer that is not recovering.

EU aggregate fill did rise, reaching 56.39% on the 30 July gas day against 54.41% on 21 July ³. The bloc is building, at a rate that finishes the summer below every 1 November level of the past thirteen years, which is the point on which the Oxford projection and this desk's German arithmetic, drawn from separate datasets by separate methods, agree.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Two energy researchers, one from Oxford University's energy institute and one from British Gas owner Centrica, published a forecast on 27 July for how full Europe's gas storage will be by 1 November. Their number, 72 billion cubic metres or 67% full, would be the lowest level for that date since 2012, calculated simply by assuming this year's remaining injection matches last year's pace from a lower starting point.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

The 72 bcm figure is not a prediction that the market will underperform; it is what happens if 2026 injection from 22 July onward tracks 2024's pace exactly, applied to a base that starts 10.6 bcm lower. The root cause of the low projection is therefore the starting deficit, not any assumed deterioration in injection behaviour between now and November.

That starting deficit itself traces to the earlier 26-29 June round trip through the Strait of Hormuz, which invalidated OIES's own June base case of 74.3 bcm; the new 72 bcm figure sits below even that already-revised scenario, meaning two consecutive downgrades in as many months.

What could happen next?

Risk
If actual injection tracks the OIES and Centrica base case rather than a stronger LNG-diversion outcome, EU storage would enter winter at its lowest 1 November level since 2012.
Opportunity
A widening winter strip strong enough to pull LNG cargoes away from Asian buyers could push the actual outcome above the 72 bcm base case, as happened with 2023's post-2022 refill.

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources

Primary parallel: Forecasters faced the same base-case trap in autumn 2021, when models extrapolating prior-year injection paces were overtaken by Gazprom's decision to curtail discretionary flows through Yamal-Europe, and actual EU fill undershot the trend-following forecasts of that summer by a wide margin heading into November.

Counter-parallel: The 2023 refill season went the other way: base-case projections built on 2022's injection pace understated the actual outcome, because record-high 2022 prices had permanently destroyed enough industrial demand that the following year's fill comfortably beat trend, showing the same methodology can miss in either direction.

A 67% November fill projection, the lowest since 2012, is the kind of number that typically moves the winter strip ahead of any confirmation that the outcome will actually materialise.

Watch for the EU aggregate fill (56.39% on 30 July) against this trajectory as the season's clearest early tell on whether the OIES base case or a stronger LNG-diversion outcome prevails.

Consensus view: Oxford Institute for Energy Studies' Jack Sharples and Centrica's Ricky Hill flag that 1 July stocks at 52 bcm sat 10.6 bcm below the same date in 2025, and simply repeating last year's injection curve from that lower base produces the 72 bcm November projection, the weakest since 2012, without needing to assume anything has gone wrong with the market this summer.

Counter-view: The counter-case runs that same-period injection comparisons understate Europe's flexibility, because European buyers can and do divert spot cargoes away from Asian markets when the winter strip widens enough, a lever unavailable to the historical years the OIES model is built on.

Key tension: Whether a forecast built on last year's injection pace is a reasonable base case or a systematic underestimate, given Europe's demonstrated ability to outbid Asian buyers for marginal LNG cargoes when the price signal is strong enough.

Sources:Oxford Institute for Energy Studies and Centrica·Oxford Institute for Energy Studies and Centrica

Mentions:Oxford Institute for Energy Studies →Centrica →Gazprom →Strait of Hormuz →

First Reported In

Update #31 · Caverns restart, 21 points short of November

Oxford Institute for Energy Studies and Centrica· 31 Jul 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

OIES base case becomes its stress case

OIES revised its invalidated June base case into a lower 72 bcm November projection using the same methodology.

Occurred 29 Jun 2026

Read story →

This Event

Oxford puts EU gas at 67% on 1 November

A bloc-wide projection and a German national calculation reach the same verdict from entirely different data.

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