Europe’s appetite for natural gas is leading to a growth “renaissance” as its stores of the fuel languish at the lowest levels since 2013, according to Gazprom PJSC.

A “conservative estimate” by the world’s biggest gas exporter is that Europe’s demand may increase by about 5 percent this year, Deputy Chief Executive Officer Alexander Medvedev said Thursday in an interview in Hong Kong. The state-run company, which supplied record volumes to Europe last year and met more than a third of consumption, sees its 2017 shipments of “no less than in 2016,” he said, according to Bloomberg.

The European Union’s gas demand increased in 2015 after four years of declines. After the coldest January in seven years and plunging output at domestic fields, the region is getting increasingly dependent on foreign supplies of the fuel mainly used in heating. And the low storage levels aren’t lost on Medvedev.

“We see a renaissance now, so the 5 percent growth is a realistic figure,” Medvedev said. “Meanwhile, the production is falling and will fall further.”

European gas consumption rose by 4.8 percent in 2016, according to a Gazprom estimate. By comparison, regional production will slump by 27 percent from 2014 through 2020, according to the International Energy Agency in Paris.