Morgan Stanley warns Europe may face lowest gas stocks in 15 years

Morgan Stanley ↗ 2.52% has raised its winter forecast for the Dutch TTF natural gas benchmark to €85 per megawatt-hour, warning that Europe could enter the heating season with storage levels at just 71% of capacity — what the bank said would be the lowest level in 15 years, according to a Reuters report on Thursday.tradingview

The investment bank flagged slow inventory builds over the summer as the primary driver, cautioning that TTF prices could reach €100/MWh if the storage shortfall persists, according to Quantum Commodity Intelligence.qcintel

A Summer of Sluggish Refilling

Europe's gas storage deficit has been a growing concern throughout 2026. The continent entered the injection season in the spring with inventories at their lowest point since 2018, holding roughly 31 billion cubic meters, according to Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy. EU storage finished the previous winter at around 25% full — levels not seen since the 2017–18 "Beast from the East" cold snap.energypolicy.columbia+1

By late August, EU storage had climbed to only about 65% of working capacity, running roughly 19 percentage points below the five-year seasonal norm, according to GIE data tracked by Global Energy Flow. TTF front-month prices have surged more than 120% over the past year, reflecting the tightness.tradingeconomics+1

Banks Sound the Alarm

Morgan Stanley is not alone in warning of price spikes. Goldman Sachs The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. ↗ 3.34% analysts said in late August that European gas prices may need to exceed €100/MWh by December to attract enough LNG cargoes to secure winter supply.gurufocus

The EU's own energy regulator, ACER, noted earlier this year that the price pressures coincide with storage levels that fell below 30% at the end of last winter, setting the stage for a difficult refill campaign.acer.europa

What Comes Next

The stakes are high for European consumers and industry. The EU had set storage-filling targets in recent years to prevent a repeat of the 2022 energy crisis, but the 2026 injection season has fallen short of those ambitions. With the heating season beginning in October, every week of below-average injections narrows the margin for error — and strengthens the case Morgan Stanley and its peers are making for triple-digit gas prices this winter.