Samantha Dart, co-head of global commodities research at Goldman Sachs, began the week by telling Bloomberg TV that the global diesel-supply crunch is "what keeps her up at night." She followed up Wednesday with a client note warning that European natural gas storage levels are also lagging the seasonal average ahead of the winter heating period.
Benchmark TTF futures have fallen 7% this week to about 54 euros per megawatt-hour, but Dart maintained her 60-euro balance-of-third-quarter forecast. She noted that Northwest European LNG imports missed July expectations by 2.1 million tons on an annualized basis, leaving storage just 43% full at month-end versus the 45.5% projected.
The latest Bloomberg data shows that Europe's NatGas storage is about 57.87% full, roughly 18 percentage points below the 2009–25 average.
"Specifically, the July miss in European LNG imports (and the resulting miss in storage fill) vs our expectations suggest that European gas storage still has some catching up to do, while LNG supply availability remains uncertain," Dart wrote in the note.
Dart continued, emphasizing that Europe must accelerate NatGas injections to reach her 67% storage target by the end of October. Higher potential Qatari exports, weaker Asian spot demand and reduced Egyptian imports could free additional cargoes for Europe, though an early drop in TTF prices risks redirecting LNG back toward Asia.
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