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Germany’s gas storage hits a record low of 61% as winter arrives Korea’s chip exports jump 259% as October shipments hit $115.3B Oil at $110: will talks, the status quo or strikes set the next move? The 49.3 Problem: China’s factories shrink as its carmakers sell abroad Week ahead: US midterms, two rate hikes, jobs data and AI’s next earnings test Weekend Wrap part 2: Record profits, Falling Stocks - and Nervous AI Investors Weekend Wrap 1: The AI bill nobody fully counted: Bangladesh, World's no.2 apparel exporter, forms garment wage board after protests shut 43 factories FBI pins $6.3B Binance heist on North Korea; withdrawals restart Exxon earns $15.4B, Chevron $9.9B as refining boom lifts Big Oil

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Germany’s gas storage hits a record low of 61% as winter arrives

Europe’s largest economy is heading into winter with gas storage at a record low, well short of its 1 November target, because the Iran war made refilling over the summer uneconomical.

News | 2 November 2026

Germany’s gas storage hits a record low of 61% as winter arrives

German storage was 61.17% full on 31 Oct, far below the 1 Nov target. The EU average is 75%, and temperatures are expected to drop below freezing in the south and east.

The industry body INES says high war-era prices made summer refilling uneconomical. The regulator says the targets “are no longer essential” because Germany now has LNG terminals, but admits gas is much more expensive for customers. Berlin also rejected Italy’s charge that it under-filled storage on purpose to cut costs ahead of privatising its gas importers.

Caverns were just 61% full going into November, a record low and well behind the 75% EU average.

The cause is the Iran war: prices were so high over the summer that buying gas to store it made no commercial sense. Berlin says LNG terminals and Norwegian pipelines mean there won’t be shortages. But a cold winter could double daily demand, and the buffer meant to cover that gap is thinner than it has ever been.