Britain has just TWO DAYS' worth of gas stored up - sparking fears of a supply shortage

[chickenpotnoodle]

Should we be worried about any potential fuel shortages ?
The price of fuel increases and potential gas shortages is becoming a real possibility - or do you think I should stop looking at the news ?

How many days gas supply do we usually have in storage? If we normally have a months worth then 2 days seems unusual (but may not be a problem if more is coming), but if 3 days is the norm then 2 days is nothing. With everything going on right now, you’d be mad to worry about a bit of gas!

You should stop looking at the news.

Even if you did decide to worry, what would you do? Go out and panic buy fuel? Because that will not help the situation, will it.

Well my dh has been worried about this for years and so as a family we have switched off the gas, got solar panels, a fat battery, a heatpump and and EV so he doesn’t have to worry about it anymore.
he’s feeling smug now I tell you

A quick google told me the UK usually has anything bwtween 1.5 days supply to 12 days supply in storage.

I’m not worried.

Normally, the UK only stores about 10–12 days of gas at maximum capacity.
Typical UK gas storage
Around 12 days of average demand when storage is completely full.
About 7–8 days during peak winter demand when usage is higher.
Why headlines say “2 days”
Right now the figure being reported (around 1.5–2 days) refers to what is currently left in storage, not the country’s total capacity.
Why the UK keeps so little stored
The UK relies less on storage because it usually gets gas from several continuous supply sources:
Pipelines from Norway
Remaining North Sea production
LNG ships importing gas from countries like the US or Qatar
Interconnectors with Europe
So storage acts more like a buffer for spikes in demand, not the main supply.
Compared with Europe
The UK’s storage is tiny compared with many neighbours:
Germany: ~89 days
France: ~100 days
Netherlands: ~120 days
✅ In short:
Maximum UK storage ≈ 12 days
Typical winter coverage ≈ about a week
Current reports ≈ 1–2 days left in storage

Perhaps the storage is more the issue than the supply ?

Well I bet some are now! I heard some bod on Radio 4 the other day, when they were talking about how fast the petrol prices might rise, saying they had plenty of supply and how it was actually bought so prices will not rise overnight. While Britain has less gas stock than other nations it doesn’t actually get much supply that is directly affected by the current issues, but prices will rise due to global factors. So prices are the issue, not supply.

Heating oil price has doubled in a week and that impacts about 1.5 million households, including rural England, fuel prices up and guess what powers business, heats schools, hospitals... Just because you don't have gas, the lack of storage, yet another result of appalling decision making, impacts us all. Anyone up for starting a common sense, 'I love the UK and want it to flourish' political party!!

Pure clickbait. We’re coming out of Winter so of course stored supplies will be lower due to lower demand over spring/ summer.
If it was actually serious, we, the plebs, wouldn’t be told a damn thing ‘for our own good’.
When the scare stories stop it’s time to worry.

Yes we should worry. But not specifically ‘now’.

This country fails to plan for any disruptions lasting over 24 hours. We are energy insecure, and food insecure (we only produce half the food we need), and seem to think that supply chains will magically keep working in all situations.

ministers don’t like to deal with the issue, because planning and preparing is not ‘sexy’ and won’t get you on the telly. The general public is generally too ignorant to understand the risks.

We have also failed to invest in our armed forces, to the extreme that when we tested Trident it failed, and HMS Dragon seems to be the only ship incapable of crossing the channel.

pathetic really.

Typical hysteria from the Daily Mail

Clickbait and scaremongering. And of course when the impact of raised fuel prices is felt it will all be the government's fault. 🙄

Well, there’s sweet fa I can do about it so what’s the point in stirring up panic?
🤷🏼‍♀️

We are coming into better temperatures and we won't be using as much so no lam not worried at all @chickenpotnoodle

No point in worrying. Even if it is rationed we will still be better off than innocent people in Iran.

Clearly everyone should panic, that's going to help.

Whats the point in the heat pump or the EV if the power goes out though? What proportion of power is supplied through gas, it might have changed but it was a lot last time I looked

Buy your toilet paper now... Just saying.

Which is why we shouod be investing in renewables - both research and implemention.

Every wind turbine and solar farm is met lots of local opposition, in an act of short-sighted harm.

Not being prepared is the new normal.

You can run the heat pump and electrics off the solar and batteries. How much depends on the size of your array and batteries, and time of year, but if you’ve set up the system correctly, then if the grid goes down you still have power.

This is also a huge problem with gas. There are various options where the geology is suitable for gas storage around the UK but nobody wants it near them. By the time you’ve added a public inquiry and court hearings etc the costs of getting planning permission even if eventually successful, make it too expensive.

Didn’t we learn from all the panicking over gas shortages when the ukraine war?

You should stop looking at the Daily Mail for sure

It’s incredibly dangerous for news organisations to be reporting on things like this. Similarly that petrol is going to rocket in price. All it does is create panic buying and exacerbate the problem.

I bet! Jeal.