Summer Outlook 2024

Every year, a Summer Outlook is published in order to check the capacity of the infrastructures to properly fill French gas storage before the start of next winter.

Different scenarios are established taking into account the following elements:

• maintenance of gas infrastructure operators
• potential congestion that could occur on the network depending on gas flows

The filling of storages must meet two regulatory requirements: the French one which stipulates that by November 1, an obligation for shippers to have filled the storages to 85% of their subscriptions and the other European which requires France to having filled the storages to 90% of marketable capacities.

The other issue is linked to security of supply for the 24-25 winter. It is necessary to maximize the level of stocks at the end of October, particularly in the context of the war in Ukraine to cover consumption for a cold winter with potentially high exports to Germany, Switzerland and Belgium.

At the end of the 2023-2024 gas winter, the storage filling rate was 38.9% (or 50.4 TWh), a figure above (10 TWh) the maximum of the last 7 years.

According to the different scenarios studied, filling the storages at the end of October before the start of the 2024-2025 gas winter is possible by considering the capacities available on the network and the maintenance programs.

However, due to the disruption of Russian gas pipeline supplies, the margin is low.

Maximum filling of storage therefore assumes:

• sustained use of the Dunkirk entrances (offshore pipeline coming from Norway arriving from the North Sea to Dunkirk), Pirineos (interconnection point between France and Spain) and LNG terminals at a sustained level throughout the season.
• sobriety efforts to facilitate maximum filling of storage, even in the event of a cold summer and/or strong economic recovery, in anticipation of a potentially cold winter 2024/25.