Europe is drawing gas from its reserves at the fastest pace in seven years as cold weather increases heating needs and temperatures are expected to drop again this week, Bloomberg reported.

Europe’s underground gas storage facilities, which act as a buffer against supply disruptions, are now 70% full, down from 86% at the same time last year. While there is no immediate risk of a shortage, the rapid emptying of storage facilities could make it more difficult to refill them next season and could weigh on prices in the short term, according to Agerpres.

According to data provided by Gas Infrastructure Europe and analyzed by Bloomberg, the level of filling of European gas storage facilities is 25 percentage points lower than their peak level, which is the most significant drop recorded since 2018.

“The lower the level of filling of storage facilities at the end of March, the harder it will be for the European region to refill them next season. This will be all the more likely as the forecasts show that temperatures will be lower than currently estimated,” said Samantha Dart, director of natural gas research at Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Temperatures have fallen in much of the northwestern region of Europe, which could mean further withdrawals of gas from storage facilities as heating needs increase. The continent is also increasingly exposed to market volatility because it relies on liquefied natural gas to fill the gap left by the cessation of Russian natural gas transit via pipelines in Ukraine.

Unscheduled outages at major gas suppliers could further unbalance the region’s fragile balance and trigger further price fluctuations. For example, in Norway, the Hammerfest LNG processing plant was shut down until January 9 due to compressor problems.