MOSCOW, October 22. /TASS/. Net withdrawals (the net difference between withdrawal and injection volumes) of natural gas from Europe's underground storage facilities (UGS) turned positive for the first time this fall, according to TASS calculations based on data from Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE).

This marks the official start of the heating season in the region. To date, Europe has managed to inject only 75% of the target gas volumes required for the upcoming winter.

As of October 20, Europe's UGS facilities are filled to 74.58% (14.58 percentage points lower than the five-year average for this date), compared to 82.8% a year earlier. This remains the lowest level recorded for this date since observations began in 2011. EU storage facilities currently hold about 81.7 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas, which is 9.7 bcm less than last year's accumulation and the lowest level since 2013.