Despite the fact Germany has managed to fill its storage facilities for natural gas to near their maximum capacity, the country’s economy minister warns that the nation may still see natural gas shortages this winter.

According to data from the Aggregated Gas Storage Inventory (AGSI), Germany’s storage depots are over 90% full. However economy minister Robert Habeck told reporters on Monday that because Russia has dramatically cut natural gas supplies to Germany, it is expected the country will fully deplete all of its reserves by the end of winter.

He said, “If everything goes well with gas savings and we are lucky with the weather, we have a chance to get through winter comfortably. That means, however, that the storage facilities will be empty again at the end of the winter – in this case, really empty, because we are going to use the gas.”

Previously the nations energy regulator, Klaus Muller had warned that even if the nation were to reach 95% of its storage capacity, the nation would only have two and a half months of heating, power, and industrial demand, should Russia completely cut off deliveries.

Muller had reiterated last week that if the winter were to be unusually cold, There would likely be gas bottlenecks which would lead to shortages. In an interview at the time he said, “I expect waves. There are gas shortages, they go, they come back, they appear here, sometimes there, possibly throughout Germany.”

He added that due to the vagaries of weather forecasting, this meant Germany could not predict gas demand and availability more than two weeks in advance.

Prior to the invasion of Ukraine, Russia supplied roughly 40% of the European Union’s gas demand. Presently, following restrictions on deliveries by Russia, the European Union is only importing about 9% of its natural gas from Russia.