As summer draws to a close, European energy discussions turn their focus to one familiar benchmark: gas storage. By law, member states must now fill facilities to 90% capacity each year, with recent regulation amendments introducing a flexible window that runs from October through December. Stress clauses allow targets to fall to 80%, or in extreme cases 75%, if market conditions demand.

On a continental level, 2025 storage now sits at 78%, safely above the five-year minimum, but still trails the five-year average, and looks a long way off the exceptional levels of 2024 when inventories were brushing against the historical maximum.

At the national level, the picture varies, but the pattern is consistent: storage is far from danger levels. Take Italy, home to a significant share of Europe’s industrial enterprises. Storage sits close to the five-year mean, offering a healthier cushion than the EU average, though still below last year’s unusually high benchmark. Put simply, Europe is secure, but not overstocked.

And that security isn’t just about what’s in the tanks today — it’s also about what’s coming. Global LNG supply is on a sharp upward trajectory: 550 billion cubic metres in 2024, 590 bcm this year, rising to 649 bcm in 2026 and heading toward nearly 890 bcm by 2030. The frantic summer refill races of 2022 and 2023, when Europe scrambled for every available cargo, look far less likely to return in the coming years.

That said, it’s not all smooth sailing. Even with fuller stores, European winters have a way of throwing surprises.

Our analysis shows how this played out last winter: Q1 2025 saw the coldest temperatures of the past five years, and with them some of the steepest storage withdrawals European reserves have seen in recent years. Those few weeks were enough to accelerate depletion well beyond seasonal averages and send visible ripples through gas prices. It’s a sharp reminder that winter can quickly give way to energy volatility when the weather turns.

For industrial enterprises, the implication is clear: the combination of solid storage today and growing supply points to a market where scarcity is no longer the main fear, inflexibility is. The real risk lies in being locked into the wrong price at the wrong time.

In many industrial enterprises across the metals, cement and energy sectors, longer-term OTC contracts remain the norm. That raises two critical questions:

• Are your current procurement strategies putting you at risk of being stranded at elevated prices if benchmarks ease further?

  
  

• Or are you adopting shorter-term hedging strategies, rolling positions forward dynamically to stay aligned with market conditions?

  
  

The real competitive edge lies in contract design and the strategic use of exchange-traded products. Proactive hedging through derivatives can allow enterprises to stay responsive to shifting dynamics, capturing the benefit of falling prices while still protecting against volatility during cold snaps or supply shocks.