London (Platts)--8Jan2009

French gas demand Wednesday was the highest ever recorded, at 145,000 MW,
some 7.4% higher than the previous record from January 26, 2007 of 135,000 MW,
system operator GRTgaz said in a statement.

Cold weather has swept across Western Europe this week, hiking gas and
power demand across the continent. At the same time, Russian supplies into
France remain severely curbed following Gazprom's cut of supplies through
Ukraine.

Storage supplies were used to compensate for missing Russian supplies
into the Obergailbach entry point, GRTgaz said.

Cuts to Russian gas flows into Europe, which Gazprom made following a
price dispute with Ukraine, started to bite European supplies Tuesday.

Net gas inflows at Obergailbach fell by 69.7% between Monday and Tuesday,
from 28.4 million cubic meters Monday to 8.6 million cu m Tuesday, separate
figures from French grid operator GRTgaz showed Wednesday.

There was no significant upturn in imports at Taisnieres and Dunkirk--
where gas flows into France from Belgium and Norway, respectively--and no
significant rise in liquefied natural gas injections into France. As a result,
storage withdrawals were used to compensate for the missing Russian supplies,
separate figures from GDF Suez's recently created storage arm Storengy show.

Storengy data shows that gas pulls from the six storage sites it operates
came to 139.8 million cu m on Tuesday, 38.7% higher than Monday. The biggest
rise came at the Salins Sud salt cavern facility, where daily draws increased
to 21.9 million cu m Tuesday from 7.6 million cu m Monday.

LNG injections into the Atlantic Montoir de Bretagne terminal increased
by 5.4%, to 25.3 million cu m Tuesday from 24 million cu m Monday. LNG input
into France's other terminal, the Fos Tonkin Mediterranean facility, remained
steady over both days, at 26 million cu m/d, GRTgaz data shows.