Europe’s Natural Gas Network in a Nutshell

What you’re looking at here is an overview of Europe’s underground gas network.

This map of Europe’s technical working gas volume is as vast and expansive as you’d expect, pulling together around 107 storage sites and representing around 1,572 Terawatt-hours (TWh) of energy.

Click image to view the full map

To put that into perspective, the UK makes up on 17.5TWh of Europe’s technical working gas volume, with Ukraine offering the largest contribution in 2021 (327.9 TWh), ahead of Russia’s attacks in early 2022.

Next is Germany with 260.5 TWh, while Italy and the Netherlands follow, putting up 195.4 and 144.6 TWh respectively.

Germany has the most underground gas storage facilities in Europe at 60, almost four times more than next-best France with 16. That said, Italy, which already has 13 facilities, could soon take second place if its seven planned facilities come to fruition.

Which European Country Uses the Most Gas?

So, who uses the most natural gas in Europe? It shouldn’t be any surprise that Europe’s largest consumer of gas is Europe’s largest country overall: Russia.

It accounted for almost 40% of Europe’s gas use in 2021, clocking up 4,746 TWh in 2021, according to BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy.

That’s over five times more than Europe’s second biggest gas consumer: Germany, with 905 TWh, and more than all 27 countries in the European Union combined (3,966 TWh).

The UK ranked as Europe’s third largest consumer of natural gas in 2021 (769 TWh), closely followed by Italy (725 TWh) then France (430 TWh).

Which European Country Uses the Least Amount of Gas?

In contrast, North Macedonia ranked as Europe’s lowest consumer of natural gas in 2021, using just 4 TWh, which would’ve been just enough to keep the UK happy for roughly two days. Similarly, Russia would blast through that amount of gas in around eight hours.

Estonia was just behind with 5 TWh, followed by Luxembourg – Europe’s second smallest country - and Slovenia (9 and 8 TWh respectively).

Rank	Europe’s biggest consumer of natural gas	Europe’s lowest consumer of natural gas
1	Russia (4,746 TWh)	North Macedonia (4 TWh)
2	Germany (905 TWh)	Estonia (5 TWh)
3	UK (769 TWh)	Luxembourg (8 TWh)
4	Italy (725 TWh)	Slovenia (9 TWh)
5	France (430 TWh)	Latvia (12 TWh)

Source: BP.com - Statistical Review of World Energy 2022

 

 

Where Are the Longest Natural Gas Pipelines?

The world’s longest natural gas pipeline is China’s West-East Pipeline, which stretches for 5,410 miles between Xinjiang and Shanghai.

That’s over twice the length of Europe’s most far-reaching effort: the 2,552-mile Yamal-Europe Pipeline, which snakes all the way from Siberia to Germany.

Regardless of how far your gas has travelled, here at British Business Energy, we go the distance to secure the best gas prices for your business from a panel of trusted British providers.

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Banner Photo: Ayesha Firdaus / Unsplash