After 2022, Europe made itself a promise: never again would its winter depend on a country at war.
Four years later, it does. Only the country has changed.
While public attention has been mostly focused on oil and diesel, a potentially more serious squeeze has been building through natural gas.
Analysts now warn that Europe may have to cut its gas consumption to get through to the end of March, as storage levels head into winter at their lowest for the time of year on record.
“Wind output and temperatures will determine how tight Europe’s gas supply becomes this winter and how high prices go,” Ana Maria Jaller-Makarewicz, lead energy analyst for Europe at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), told Euronews.
“Demand reduction remains the biggest lever within Europe’s control,” she added.
How high have European gas prices climbed?
The Dutch TTF contract, Europe’s benchmark gas price, traded at around €28 per megawatt hour at the start of January.
On Monday, it hovered near €96, after briefly touching €97.64, its highest level since December 2022. That is a rise of about 234% since the start of the year.
Prices remain far from the August 2022 peak above €340.
Yet, the worry now is less the level than the direction.
Where has Europe’s gas gone?
The war with Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz have cut Europe off from one of its key suppliers: Qatar.
Middle Eastern liquefied natural gas (LNG) made up roughly 8% of the EU’s LNG imports last year, according to Brussels-based think tank Bruegel.
Since May, none has arrived.
The share may sound small. But in a tight global market, every missing cargo has to be replaced by one that Asian buyers are also bidding for.
There is also a second gap on the horizon. Russian LNG still made up about a fifth of the EU’s LNG imports in the second quarter, according to Bruegel.
From January 2027, the EU will ban it completely.
“In the report, the Russian LNG ban starting in January 2027 is included in the calculation showing that the EU may need to use about 7% less gas than it did last winter,” Jaller-Makarewicz said, referring to IEEFA’s study published earlier this month.
Why are Europe’s gas storage levels so worrying?
Without Qatari gas, Europe could not rebuild its reserves this summer.
EU storage was 74.6% full on 24 October, according to Bruegel. A year earlier, it stood at 82.9%. In 2023, it was almost full, at 98.5%.
IEEFA says it is the lowest for this time of year since records began in 2011.
What stands out most is that reserves have stopped growing. In the week to 24 October, daily changes hovered around zero, and some countries have already started drawing on winter stocks before November.
Austria’s storage, for example, has slipped from 69.3% in mid-October to 67.2%, against 84% a year ago.
Wood Mackenzie, the energy research firm, now expects European storage to be only around 17% to 20% full by the end of March, a few points lower than its previous forecast.
That view assumes a normal winter, and that the Middle East conflict ends this year with Qatar and the United Arab Emirates returning to usual LNG output in early 2027, according to Tom Marzec-Manser, the firm’s director for Europe gas and LNG.
“If it’s a cold winter – which is not the consensus because of El Niño – storage levels could be even lower,” Tom Marzec-Manser, director for Europe Gas & LNG at Wood Mackenzie, told Euronews.
Prices would then climb further, he said, as Europe outbids Asia for spare cargoes.
For Europe, finishing winter with near-empty stocks would then force a bigger refill next summer, pushing prices up once again.
How long could high prices last?
Even a quick end to the war would not bring immediate relief.
“Even assuming the conflict ends by the end of the year and the Middle Eastern producers do begin returning their LNG operations at the start of next year, we still hold the view it will take to the autumn of 2028 to bring the global LNG market back to balance,” Marzec-Manser said.
“This does mean wholesale gas prices will remain high in Europe during much of this time,” he added.
So, how much could your bill rise?
TTF futures for the coming winter months trade at about €95 per megawatt hour, nearly three times last winter’s average of about €36.
That gap works out to roughly six euro cents for every kilowatt hour of gas.
For a typical home that heats with gas, using around 10,000 kilowatt hours between November and March, that would add about €600 to the energy cost alone.
With an average VAT rate of 20%, the figure rises to around €715.
Household prices had already started to climb. Residential gas cost an average of 11.9 euro cents per kilowatt hour across EU capitals in early September, 12% more than in February, according to the Household Energy Price Index (HEPI) compiled by Energie-Control Austria, MEKH and VaasaETT.
How much of the wholesale surge reaches each family will depend on where they live and what contract they have. Fixed-price contracts, regulated tariffs and government support can delay or soften the hit.
Can Europe cut its way through the winter?
Part of the demand reduction may happen anyway, Jaller-Makarewicz said, because high prices push some users to consume less.
For households, the measures are simple.
Turning thermostats down by one degree could save up to 10% on energy bills, according to Jaller-Makarewicz. Lowering hot water temperatures and draught-proofing homes also help.
On whether Brussels should coordinate demand cuts now, rather than wait for a price spike, she suggested a shared approach with national flexibility.
“Brussels could provide a framework to achieve this target, allowing individual member states to implement measures tailored to their specific domestic gas markets.”
The longer-term answer, in her view, is to keep reducing how much gas Europe needs.
“Each new renewable energy project, battery storage system and grid upgrade helps to reduce Europe’s reliance on gas,” she said. EU gas demand fell by 17.7% between 2021 and 2025, which she called a crucial buffer against supply shortages.
That buffer is now being tested.
Europe changed its suppliers after 2022. It did not change how much it depends on them. And this winter, whether that becomes a crisis may come down less to Brussels than to how cold January gets, and how hard the wind blows.