The President of the Federal Network Agency, Klaus Müller, believes that the targets set by the federal government for filling the gas storage facilities can hardly be achieved. “I don’t expect that we will be able to achieve the next storage targets as quickly as the first one,” said Müller to the online portal “t-online”. Reaching the 85 percent target is “not impossible, but very ambitious”, especially by October 1st, if the heating is on before then.

“In all of our scenarios, we miss an average fill level of 95 percent by November 1,” Müller continued. “We will hardly be able to do that because individual storage facilities started from a very low level.”

The target of a storage capacity of 75 percent in September was already reached early last weekend. The Federal Ministry of Economics explained that the Gas Storage Act, which came into force at the end of April and obliges all operators in Germany to gradually fill their storage facilities, is taking effect.

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With the regulation implemented by the federal government, precautions should be strengthened in view of reduced Russian gas supplies, especially with a view to this winter. It is planned that the reservoirs will be 85 percent full by October 1st and 95 percent by November 1st.

Federal Network Agency boss Müller swore the population to save gas and energy beyond the coming months. “It’s not just about one winter, but at least two. And the following winter could be even harder,” he said to “t-online”. “We have to save a lot of gas for at least another year. To put it bluntly: it will be at least two tough winters.”

In his own words, Müller considers local gas shortages to be “probable” for this winter. “There could well be gas shortages regionally,” he said. “The restrictions would probably be temporary at first and could end again or occur several times. In this case, we have to ensure that the gas is safely transported across the country.”