Europe Starts Injection Season With Least Gas Since 2018 as Hormuz Risk Lingers

Europe Starts Injection Season With Least Gas Since 2018 as Hormuz Risk Lingers Analysts warn EU storage may only reach 86% by winter if the Strait of Hormuz reopens soon, and far less if disruption runs past July. Europe began the 2026 injection season with just 31 billion cubic metres in storage, the lowest level entering the stocking period since 2018, according to Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy. ICE Endex TTF front-month traded around €42.59 on Monday (2026-06-22), up 1.24% on the session.³ The cushion Europe relies on to get through winter is unusually thin just as a Middle East supply scare refuses to clear. Analysts told Montel that Europe could still reach an adequate 86% storage level before winter if the Strait of Hormuz reopens soon, but that a reopening after July could send prices spiking.^1,3 The arithmetic is unforgiving. Europe holds 110 bcm of storage capacity that has long acted as the world's virtual buffer, absorbing surplus LNG and pipeline gas from April to October, the Columbia analysis noted. Starting the season at 31 bcm means a vast volume must be imported and injected over seven months to reach anything resembling a comfortable winter position.³ There is precedent, but it is not reassuring. The last time Europe entered injection this depleted, in 2018, stocks bottomed near 19 bcm and the continent managed a record 74 bcm of injections over the following seven months, the Columbia data show. Replicating that now is harder. The loss of most Russian pipeline gas since 2022 and all Qatari LNG imports indefinitely has stripped out volumes that previous refills leaned on.³ Recognising the squeeze, EU policymakers are weighing whether to lower the storage filling target from 90% to 80%, according to the Columbia report, a move intended to give the market certainty and head off a desperate bidding war for cargoes.³ The direct exposure to the Middle East is smaller than the panic suggests. The Economist put Europe's Middle Eastern gas at roughly 200 million cubic metres of total weekly imports of about 6.5 billion cubic metres, a modest share. The danger is not that those cargoes vanish, but that any disruption to Hormuz tightens the global LNG market Europe must outbid Asia to draw from.⁵ That competition is the real transmission channel. Europe and Asia buy from the same flexible LNG pool, so a Hormuz scare that lifts JKM forces European buyers to pay up to keep cargoes turning west. JKM spot was quoted around $15.31 on Monday (2026-06-22). With storage already low, the margin for paying that premium through a long refill is slim.^5,1 Russia offers little relief. Russian gas production fell about 3.2% in the first half, to roughly 334.8 bcm, with LNG output down 5.1% to around 16.5 million tonnes, according to figures cited by Fullavante News drawing on Bloomberg. Exports via Power of Siberia are projected to rise more than 20% this year toward the line's 38 bcm annual ceiling, but that gas flows east to China, not west to Europe.² Even so, more than 13% of EU gas imports still came from Russia as of late April, the April EU Gas Market Report noted, a dependence that has narrowed but not ended. European inventories had rebounded modestly to about 32.7% of capacity by 30 April, up from 27.7%, the same report said.⁴ The end of the Ukraine transit contract removed one of the last meaningful pipeline routes, Bruegel noted, leaving Europe more reliant on seaborne LNG precisely when that market is most contested. The continent has scarcely recovered from the 2022 shock, and the Iran crisis lands on an already-stretched system.^6,5 For now the tape is calm. ICE Endex TTF front-month near €42.59 and German power around €98.94, down 2.32% on Monday (2026-06-22), do not price a crisis. NBP day-ahead fell 5.68% to around €48.51, suggesting near-term comfort rather than alarm.³ Whether Hormuz stays open into July now sets the path. Analysts have drawn that line clearly: an early reopening keeps the 86% target plausible, a later one risks a winter bidding war Europe enters with its thinnest buffer in eight years. The injection clock is running, and there are roughly three months left before the window to refill quietly closes.^1,3