French gas consumption fell 9.3% in 2022 to 430 terawatt hours (TWh) due to mild weather, high prices and savings efforts related to the war in Ukraine, French gas transport grid operator GRTgaz said in a study released on Friday.

GRTgaz head Thierry Trouve added to reporters on Friday that France’s overall gas stocks should be more fully filled up than usual at the end of this winter period.

At the same time, gas-fired power plants saw their gas consumption jump 54.4% to a record 61 TWh last year as they were called upon to compensate for the unavailability of France’s nuclear power plants.

The industrial sector’s gas consumption fell 11.5% overall, but some energy-intensive industries such as steel, oil refining and non-metallic materials saw falls of around 19%, GRTgaz said.

To compensate for the drastic fall in Russian gas exports to Europe – which virtually stopped from the summer – volumes of LNG imports more than doubled to 370 TWh, of which France exported about 158 TWh onwards to Switzerland, Italy, Belgium and Germany.

Pipeline gas deliveries fell by 21%, said GRTgaz, which transported a total of 708 TWh of gas throughout the country last year.

Biogas sites linked to the network produced 7 TWh of renewable gas in France last year, GRTgaz said, adding that renewable gas production capacity now stands at about 9 TWh per year, 2.5 TWh more than in 2021.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Benjamin Mallet; Writing by GV De Clercq; Editing by Jan Harvey)