Faith Birol, the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), met with the Economic Council of Finland last week.
He warned the council and following the meeting the media that 90% of European gas storage is full.
“So this winter is difficult, but next winter may also be very difficult,” he said.
In the press conference, Birol said that he hoped that European countries would have been much faster “to react to our recommendations,” while referring to the IEA’s 10-point plan on how to reduce Europe’s reliance on Russian gas following Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Birol, however, added that he expects no surprises, neither political nor technical and if a normal winter should prevail “Europe can go through this winter with some bruises here and there.”
He evaluated that the gas storage levels will likely have dropped to between 25% and 30% by February and March 2023. So, the question is how to reach the 80-90% levels again.
According to Birol, the gas situation of Europe was helped by the gas imports from Russia in the last few months this year while he called the gas imports from China in 2022 a “very sluggish economic performance.”
Birol however seemed hopeful and speculated that the import of Chinese gas could increase next year with the Chinese economy coming back after easing of the coronavirus restrictions.
Nonetheless, he stressed that the economic preparations for filling the gas reserves from March 2023 to next winter should start rather sooner than later.
https://finlandtoday.fi/head-of-the-international-energy-agency-warns-about-two-difficult-winters-in-europe-while-visiting-finland/”>