OREANDA-NEWS Europe needs to pump at least 63 billion cubic meters of gas into its underground storage facilities to reach the level of 90% of their occupancy. This was reported by Gazprom in its telegram channel.

"This is very ambitious. In recent years, such volume has not been pumped during the season, and it is not enough to guarantee passing consumption peaks in case of abnormally cold winters," Gazprom said.

According to Gazprom calculations, 71 billion cubic meters of gas will have to be pumped to fill up the European storage capacity to the level that was created for the winter season of 2020/2021. And to the level created for the winter of 2019/2020 - 72.4 billion cubic meters of gas.

In March, the European Commission presented a draft law according to which the EU gas storages should be filled to 80%. We are talking about reaching the volume by November 1, 2022. The beginning of November was chosen because of the beginning of the heating season. For the next years it is planned to reach the EU gas storage capacity of 90%.

Earlier, Germany warned about the dire consequences of refusal from Russian gas. Bulgaria also acknowledged its critical dependence on Russian gas.