This winter, NU.nl will regularly provide you with an overview of the development of the gas price, gas consumption and the filling of the gas storage facilities in the Netherlands. These are last week’s numbers in three charts.
Gas prices have fallen further in the past week. Traders paid 53.69 euros for a megawatt hour. That is about 6 euros less than a week earlier. In August the gas price peaked at around 340 euros. Since then, the price has been falling steadily.
This is partly because the winter is not really harsh and because consumers and companies are frugal. As a result, stocks remain well filled and countries do not have to dig deep into their pockets to refill their stores.
As mentioned, stocks have remained fairly stable in recent times. The four gas storage facilities in the Netherlands were on average two thirds (66.6 percent) full on 7 February. That is slightly less than the 68.5 percent of a week earlier.
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The cabinet wants the storages to be filled to at least 60 percent on 1 March. If stocks fall as fast over the next three weeks as they have in the past three weeks, that target will not be met. This does not mean that a shortage is imminent any time soon.
In the past week, we used 1,104 gigawatt hours of gas per day in the Netherlands. That is 30.3 percent less than usual for this time of year. For more than half a year, consumption in our country has been several tens of percent lower than in previous years.
An exception to this was the second week of December, when it was cold in the Netherlands. Gas consumption was then a few percent above normal.