Germany Hits Gas Storage Milestone After Sharp Price Drop

Traders have ramped up bookings at German natural gas storage sites, marking a sharp turnaround from earlier this year when the country exited winter with stockpiles at a three-year low and an unusual market structure made refills unprofitable.

The nation’s available capacity in underground storage sites was more than 70% booked as of this week — marking an important threshold as it’s in line with Germany’s pre-winter storage-fill goal. A recent drop in summer gas prices helped make storing gas more profitable, and traders pumped nearly 10 terawatt-hours of the fuel into reserves last week — the biggest seven-day increase since 2022.