The ships full of gas waiting off Europe’s coast

The huge tankers are waiting. Off the coasts of Spain, Portugal, the UK and other European nations lie dozens of giant ships packed full of liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Cooled to roughly -160C for transportation, the fossil fuel is in very high demand. Yet the ships remain at sea with their prized cargo.

After invading Ukraine in February, Russia curtailed gas supplies to Europe, sparking an energy crisis that sent the price of gas soaring. That led to fears of energy shortages and eye-watering bills for consumers.

"It's built up for about, I would say, five to six weeks," says Augustin Prate, vice president of energy and commodity markets at Kayrros, one of many observers who has watched the situation unfold.

He and colleagues track ships via AIS (Automatic Identification System) signals, which are broadcast by vessels to receivers, including on satellites.

"Clearly it's a big story," he says.

So why are ships loaded with LNG just hanging around Europe, exactly? The answer, as you might have guessed, is a little complicated.

Someone else who has watched the accumulation of vessels is Fraser Carson, a research analyst at Wood Mackenzie. This month, he counted 268 LNG ships on the water worldwide - noticeably above the one-year average of 241. Of those currently at sea, 51 are in the vicinity of Europe.

He explains that European nations plunged into a gas-buying spree over the summer that aimed to fill onshore storage tanks with gas. This was to ensure that heaps of fuel would be available to cover energy needs this winter.

The original target was to fill storage facilities to 80% of their total capacity by 1 November. That target has been met, and exceeded, far ahead of schedule. The latest data suggests storage is now at nearly 95% in total.

Imported LNG has played a key role in getting Europe to this point.

But as LNG continues to be brought ashore, demand for facilities that heat the liquid and turn it back into gas remains high. There aren't very many such plants in Europe, partly because the continent has long relied on gas delivered via pipelines from Russia instead.

So that's one reason why LNG ships are waiting around - some are queuing for access to regasification terminals. In the meantime, Germany and the Netherlands have invested in new regasification facilities. Some, rapidly built using converted LNG ships pinned to docksides, are expected to become operational within months.

On top of this bottleneck, less gas is getting used up in Europe than it otherwise might at present because the weather has been very mild well into October.