London, 22 August (Argus) — The financial incentive to book capacity at the largest German gas storage site Rehden for the remainder of this storage year continues to decrease.
Available injection capacity at Sefe’s Rehden storage site in combination with maintenance in October have rendered bookings at the storage site unattractive, with a worse outlook each day that passes without additional bookings.
Sefe has offered a doubled injection rate of 1.75 GWh/d since 16 July from 882 GWh/d in previous auctions. As of today, the firm had only sold 13.96TWh of capacity out of 44.68TWh of technical capacity. As a result of the increased injection rate on offer, Sefe can only sell 24.6TWh or 55pc of the site’s technical capacity.
The boosted injection rate did contribute to further bookings at first, but has not done so in recent auctions.
It would take 64 days to completely fill a bundle, and given maintenance on 6-24 October at the storage site, if firms were to book capacity today and inject at the increased firm injection rate from Saturday, it would only fill the bundle by 8 November. Factoring in injection days in each month, the average THE spread to the first-quarter 2026 contract at the last close would be -€0.21/MWh. Market participants have indicated that a €0.30/MWh spread is needed for them to profitably book and make use of Rehden space.
And every day that capacity is not booked brings the required injection period further into November, reducing the incentive. The THE November first-quarter 2026 spread is narrower than that of earlier months, closing at -€0.05/MWh at the last close, much tighter than the THE balance-of-August first-quarter 2026 spread of -€0.21/MWh.
But if Sefe were to offer additional injection capacity, this would improve the incentive to book space at the site. Sefe could offer 3.11 GWh/d of injection capacity — which would further reduce the storage capacity it can offer — and still fill the site to 45pc of capacity, in line with Germany’s national storage law. This would allow firms to fill a bundle in 36 days, before the start of October maintenance. If a firm were to book capacity today and inject at this rate from Saturday, it would fill the storage space by 28 September. Considering these injection days, the THE spread to the first-quarter 2026 contract at the last close would be -€0.30/MWh, bringing it within the profitable margin.
Storage capacity at other storage sites in Germany is currently more attractive to book than at Rehden, when only considering injection rates.
Space at the Etzel ESE (Uniper Energy Storage), Epe-L (RWE), Nuttermoor H-5 (EWE), Jemgum H (EWE) and Nuttermoor H-4 (EWE) storage sites is currently more attractive to book than Rehden based on their firm injection rates (see table). All these storage sites, where a total of 7.32TWh of capacity is available, currently offer higher firm injection rates per GWh of capacity than Rehden. This does not take into account additional or interruptible injection capacity that might be on offer at the sites.
That said, EWE was unable to sell any capacity at Nuttermoor H-4 in an auction on Thursday, the firm told Argus today. The firm had offered 1.36TWh of gas for the remainder of the storage year.
By Lucas Waelbroeck Boix and Martin Senior
