Heating season begins early in Hungary

There has been a perceptible increase in natural gas consumption in Hungary as daily temperatures dropped. National gas use figures have not increased by the past weekend as although daily average temperatures have dropped to a low, they were still slightly above 16 degrees Celsius. As the walls of residential buildings have retained some heat from the previous sunny days, and offices did not have to be heated during the weekend, demand for heating has not increased spectacularly, data from the Hungarian Energy and Public Utility Regulatory Authority (MEKH) show.

Daily temperatures decreased further early this week, remaining under 10 degrees in many places, which has boosted domestic gas consumption.

According to real-time data from natural gas transport company FGSZ, daily gas use on both Tuesday and Wednesday rose above 20 million cubic metres. While the highest this autumn, this is not outstanding in comparison with earlier years.

Gas was even withdrawn from storages on Tuesday, something that typically only happens from October.

The filling of Hungary’s gas storages is continuous and reserves stood at 5.2 billion cubic metres as of 15 September.

While this is an increase of 300 mn cubic metres from the preceding month, reserves amounted to 6.2 bn cubic metres in September 2020 and 6.1 bn in 2019. The filling up of storages is slower than usual this year due to high gas prices.

As storages are more than 80% filled, they already hold more than enough gas to cover Hungary’s winter consumption. Total gas use in the winter was last above 5 mn cubic metres in the winter of 2007/2008 (5.5 mn). It should be noted that gas storages are just one source of gas supply in addition to import capacities and domestic production.

Cover photo: plus49/Construction Photography/Avalon/Getty Images