Snam Flags Italy at 75% Storage but Warns EU Fill Rate Is Too Slow
Italy's TSO says it will hit its 90% winter target, but the European average sits 19 percentage points behind, reviving pressure on Brussels to act.
Italy's gas storage sites reached 75% of capacity as of Wednesday (2026-07-29), putting the country on track to hit the 90% winter target, Snam CEO Agostino Scornajenchi said when presenting the company's H1 results. The caveat came in the same breath: other EU member states need to move faster.7
The gap between Italy and its neighbours is stark. Gas Infrastructure Europe data cited by Snam show the EU-wide average sitting at 56%, leaving the bloc nearly 20 percentage points behind Italy's fill level at the same point in the injection season. ICE Endex TTF front-month gas was trading at €60.52/MWh on Wednesday (2026-07-29), up 4.72% on the session, a move that reflects the market's own unease about the pace of European refill.7
The season started from a precarious position. Europe entered the 2026 injection period with only around 31 billion cubic meters in storage, the lowest level since 2018, according to analysis from Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy. That compares with GIE data showing EU storage at roughly 28% — approximately 29 bcm — as of April 1, 2026, significantly below the prior three years. Getting from there to 90% across the bloc inside one injection season requires a volume of injections that leaves very little margin for supply disruption or demand spikes.4,3
Italy's better position reflects deliberate policy choices made earlier this year. Regulator Arera introduced a storage premium incentive in May (2026-05-20), designed to push operators toward the 90% target by offering compensation linked to filling performance. That mechanism gave Italian operators a financial reason to bid aggressively for summer gas at what were, in spring, relatively suppressed prices. The scheme required European Commission approval and represented a direct response to the low summer-winter price spreads that had been discouraging commercial storage fills across the continent.1
Those spread conditions are not unique to Italy. GIE's senior members told Montel in May (2026-05-21) that weak or negative summer-winter spreads were producing a market-failure problem: storage operators had little incentive to inject gas commercially when forward curves suggested they would sell it in winter at a loss or near breakeven. GIE's proposed fix — contracts for difference subsidising strategic storage capacity, to be included in the European Commission's energy security legislation update — has not yet materialised as policy.2,3
Germany illustrates how badly the season can go without such intervention. As of May 27 (2026-05-27), German storage was only 30.6% full, well below the 38.65% recorded at the same date in 2025, GIE data showed. Uniper CEO Michael Lewis warned publicly that Germany risked winter shortages if fill rates did not accelerate. The company called for incentive schemes comparable to what Italy had already put in place.6
Whether Germany has closed that gap since May is not clear from the data in this packet, but the Snam CEO's Wednesday (2026-07-29) statement — warning that "other EU countries" must move faster — suggests the divergence persists deep into the injection season. With roughly two months left before late-September storage levels typically set the tone for winter pricing, the pace of German and other laggard-state injections becomes the critical variable for TTF.7
EU policymakers have floated one potential safety valve: lowering the bloc-wide storage utilisation target from 90% to 80%, which would reduce the volume of gas needed and ease the bidding pressure that has contributed to elevated TTF prices. That proposal remains under consideration and has not been adopted. Reducing the target would provide market certainty but would also leave Europe entering winter with a thinner buffer than the rules originally envisaged.4
Europe's LNG regasification infrastructure is large enough, in theory, to absorb the volumes needed. GIE places regas capacity at around 1,600 TWh, or approximately 145 bcm, per winter season — well above what's needed to top up storage from current levels. But capacity and available supply are different things. Equinor executives warned in May (2026-05-24) that Hormuz-related disruptions, if they persisted for one to three months further, could produce a critical shortfall in European gas stocks, since the supply shocks had already removed around 20% of global LNG supply and driven European gas prices roughly 40% above pre-conflict levels.5
Italy's 75% reading is encouraging on its own terms. The broader EU average at 56% on the same date — with Germany as a known laggard and the 90% target still the nominal bloc obligation — is what traders will be watching as the injection window narrows into September.7,3