The Economics of Natural Gas Storage. A European Perspective / Экономика хранения природного газа

Storage is indispensable to the operation of the gas sector, since consumption, which is strongly influenced by weather, is seasonal and supply is relatively inflexible. Storing gas thus helps to avoid oversized extraction and transportation infrastructures, as well as to limit excessive price fluctuations.

Seasonal gas storage allows to inject gas during the summer, when demand is low, and to withdraw it during the winter, when demand increases. Given this pattern, storage capacity is usually measured by the amount of working gas that can be used throughout the year.1 Storage also helps gas suppliers to face unpredictable demand fluctuations, including peak-days requirements exceeding the average winter consumption. Daily demand fluctuations can be dealt with storage inside pipelines, known as linepack and traditionally provided by the network operator. <...>