looking to fill up their  gas storage ahead of winter.

New deals were brokered, old  gas facilities re-opened,  

and measures to control consumption imposed,  all in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Their efforts and a mild start  to the winter have paid off.

More than 95% of the EU's gas  storage was filled by mid-November.

That's above the 80% target the  European Commission set back in March.

That's easing price pressures on consumers,  but Europe's energy crisis is far from over.

Come March 1st, 2023, the  European utilities will have to

start refilling their inventories  again, to prepare for next winter.

Henning Gloystein is the Director of Energy, Climate & Resources

at political risk consultancy Eurasia Group.

And they'll have to do that probably without Russian gas.

And that means price pressure will be high.

There has been a lot of  apprehension around this winter,  

but leaders and energy experts say it's  next winter they're most worried about.

There are a few reasons for this.

For starters, Russian gas will no longer make up the bulk of Europe's energy imports.

You only have to go as far back as 2021 to see  how reliant the EU had become on Russian energy.

It was the EU's largest provider of  oil, coal and crucially natural gas,

which makes up the biggest  part of Europe's energy mix.

European nations were buying gas from Russia at normal levels

at the start of 2022, but that came to  an end after Russia invaded Ukraine.

Moscow drastically reduced supplies to  Europe, and the EU revealed plans to

wean itself off Russian energy, claiming the commodity had been “weaponized.”

It's unlikely that the EU and Russia  will restore their links any time soon,

meaning governments will have to rely on energy  from other parts of the world to heat their homes.

One option European governments were  excited about was liquefied natural gas.  

While Russia provided a decent  portion of the EU's LNG in 2021,  

so did countries like Qatar, Nigeria,  the United States and Algeria.

But Europe is facing fierce competition.

China was the world's top buyer of LNG in 2021.

In 2022, however, China began  consuming less energy as the

country's strict zero-Covid policy slowed down the economy.

The head of the International Energy Agency  has warned that a rebound in China's economy  

will push up demand for LNG, and that  supply is going to struggle to keep up.

When we look at the IEA analysis next year,  

only a very small amount of new, additional LNG will come to markets.

Global LNG supply is expected to increase  by 20 billion cubic meters in 2023.

That may sound like a lot but consider the fact that an estimated

60 billion cubic meters of Russian natural gas was imported into the EU in 2022.

And it's not like that 20 billion cubic meters goes straight to Europe.

Much of the new supply has  already been contracted to China,

with the country expected to capture over  85% of it to cope with post-lockdown growth.

China was busy signing new LNG contracts in  2021, and it's been widely reported that Chinese  

importers have been asked by the government  to stop reselling supplies to Europe and Asia.

If Chinese LNG imports recover to 2021 levels and Russian supplies of natural gas completely shut down,

Europe could face a supply-demand gap of 30 billion cubic meters during the summer.

That's half of the total gas needed to fill  storage levels to 95% ahead of next winter.

This is going to cost huge sums of money.

Energy companies, so utilities, will have to  import LNG at huge costs.

At the same time, their retail tariffs are kind of capped, so they're going to make

a loss that will increase the need for  government bailouts of the energy sector.

Governments are still having to help  small businesses and households with

their energy bills, that's going to  cost hundreds of billions of euros.

Since September 2021, nearly 600 billion euros has been set aside

across EU countries to help defend  consumers from rising energy costs.

I caught up with economist Marco Valli to better understand how this will play out

throughout the rest of Europe's economy.

The question here though, is how much more  can governments spend on the energy crisis?

Surely this can't be good for the economy,  surely this can't be good for inflation.

Governments should be ready and stand ready to continue to

support the most vulnerable part of the population.

Households can purchase less goods and less services, once they're paying their bills,  

and they're paying more expensive  electricity and gas prices.

Along with the rising cost of energy,  

governments are tackling record  inflation and an economic slowdown.

This impacts consumers and business's ability to 

spend and in turn would reduce the  amount of money raised from tax.

As a result, the government's capacity to  provide financial support would be limited.

Fiscal policy will have to become more  targeted, meaning that there will be less  

and less money to be spent for broader schemes  of support because I suspect that the money to  

provide the relief and shielding everyone from  the energy shock is just simply not there.

It's not going to be an easy year, let's say?

No, no, absolutely, for sure.

But there is one bright spot. Some European policymakers

have used the energy crisis to fast-track their green plans.

Some analysts are optimistic this could  actually pay off in the medium-term.

We are actually positive, cautiously optimistic  that come 2024-2025, there might be the famous  

green dividend available, because a lot of  companies and households will have invested  

into improved energy efficiency, and that will give them an economic and competitive advantage.

But between now and then it's going to be really painful, and that's going to hurt  

companies, households and governments.