The 95 percent mark has repeatedly been cited to equal total national consumption in January and February of this year. That is, if on the stroke of New Year 2023 all gas import in addition to the Russian deliveries was cut - from Norway, the Netherlands, and LNG via the Netherlands, Belgium, France and the two German floating terminals planned to commence operations around that date - and there was no reduction in use over last winter, we'd run out two months later.
That's not going to happen of course, and indeed the projections of the Federal Grid Agency for storage buildup with reduced input from Nord Stream 1 are so far turning out to be slightly pessimistic. Per simulations, with delivery cut to 40 percent from June we should have barely made the 85 percent capacity mark at the planned 1 October date even with the otherwise most favorable assumptions; if cut to 20, we should have just missed even that.
In reality, supply was 40 percent for two thirds of July with a scheduled ten-day downtime for maintenance in between, dropped to 20 at the end of the month, and zero at the end of August. Yet here we are on track to reach the ultimate 95 percent target four weeks early. So the combination of alternate supply and savings has definitely exceeded expectations.
But again, while most likely no one's gonna freeze or stop producing for lack of gas, energy prices can be expected to remain problematic for at least the next six months. Though the latest word is that the government will buy a majority stake in troubled mega-provider Uniper to save it; that would put paid to the planned extra levy for customers as the constitution forbids to help out state-owned enterprises with such. This would remove some additional strain (about plus 18 percent for a typical private household with pre-existing gas contract) everyone was staring at for next month.
