Storage & Fuel Supply

Han dynasty, 2nd–1st century BCE · over 2,000 years ago

Sichuan brine workers piped natural gas through bamboo conduits to fuel salt evaporation

In what is now southwest China, workers drilled deep brine wells and carried the natural gas that rose with the brine through bamboo pipelines to boil the water down, one of the earliest documented uses of piped natural gas as a fuel.

1866 · 160 years ago

Oil producers in Pennsylvania standardised the 42-gallon barrel as the unit of the oil trade

Producers and refiners agreed a common measure for the wooden barrels used to move and store crude oil, ending disputes over inconsistent container sizes and giving the young industry a unit still used to price oil today.

1915 · 111 years ago

Canadian engineers pioneered underground storage of natural gas in a depleted reservoir

A depleted gas field in Welland County, Ontario, was converted into an underground store, using the reservoir's natural trap to hold gas for withdrawal in winter, a technique later adopted for seasonal storage worldwide.

early 20th century · 126 years ago

Hydropower dams became energy storage sites at large scale

Large hydropower dams have served as energy storage sites for more than a hundred years, making hydropower the most widely adopted form of mechanical energy storage. This established bulk storage as a mature grid capability long before batteries.

1959 · 67 years ago

The Methane Pioneer completed the first ocean crossing by an LNG carrier

The converted cargo vessel carried liquefied natural gas from Lake Charles, Louisiana, to Canvey Island in the United Kingdom, proving that gas could be shipped safely across oceans rather than moved only by pipeline.

1964 · 62 years ago

Algeria opened the Arzew plant and began the first sustained commercial LNG trade

Liquefied gas shipped from Arzew to Canvey Island in the United Kingdom demonstrated that natural gas could be cooled, transported by sea and regasified at commercial scale, founding an industry that later became central to global energy security.

1974 · 52 years ago

The International Energy Agency was founded and required members to hold 90 days of oil stocks

Established by industrialised oil-importing countries within the OECD in response to the embargo, the new agency made a minimum strategic stockpile, equivalent to 90 days of net imports, a condition of membership.

1975 · 51 years ago

The United States established the Strategic Petroleum Reserve

The Energy Policy and Conservation Act created a government-owned emergency stockpile of crude oil in Gulf Coast salt caverns, a direct response to the supply cuts and price spikes of the 1973 Arab oil embargo.

1977 · 49 years ago

The United States created the Department of Energy

The new cabinet department consolidated federal responsibility for energy policy, including management of the emerging strategic petroleum reserve, after the price shocks and fuel shortages of the 1970s exposed fragmented oversight.

1991 · 35 years ago

Sony brought the first commercial lithium-ion battery to market

The Japanese company's rechargeable cell, developed from research reaching back to the 1970s, became the base technology for the electrochemical storage that later scaled from consumer electronics into grid-connected power plants.

March 2012 · 14 years ago

Electric Power Research Institute reported pumped-storage hydroelectricity held over 99% of world bulk storage

EPRI found PSH accounted for more than 99 per cent of bulk storage capacity worldwide, around 127,000 MW. This documented the overwhelming dominance of pumped hydro in grid-scale storage.

April 2026 · 4 months ago

China remained the world's largest builder of grid-scale battery storage

New provincial mandates paired large solar and wind projects with mandatory storage, and falling battery prices made standalone storage plants commercially viable even without a mandate, extending a build-out that dwarfed additions elsewhere.

• Battery cell prices kept falling

March 2026 · 5 months ago

Saudi Arabia pressed ahead with some of the largest battery storage tenders in the world

State-linked developers awarded contracts for several gigawatt-hours of standalone storage under the national renewable energy programme, intended to let the kingdom burn less crude domestically and free more oil for export.

February 2026 · 6 months ago

The European Union eased its mandatory gas storage fill targets

Brussels relaxed the rigid 1 November 90 per cent deadline introduced after the loss of Russian pipeline gas, allowing a more flexible filling trajectory after two winters in which the rule was blamed for summer price spikes.

• Several member states had pushed for the change

January 2026 · 7 months ago

India expanded viability gap funding for battery storage projects

New Delhi widened a subsidy scheme designed to close the cost gap between battery storage and conventional peaking power, part of an effort to pair the country's fast-growing solar fleet with capacity dispatchable after sunset.

December 2025 · 8 months ago

Ukraine faced renewed strikes on gas storage and fuel depots

Russian missile and drone attacks through the winter targeted underground gas storage in the west of the country, some of it holding gas owned by European trading firms, forcing greater reliance on storage capacity leased in neighbouring EU states.

Early 2025 · last year

Australia brought the Waratah Super Battery into service in New South Wales

The grid-scale battery, among the largest in the Southern Hemisphere, was built to absorb shocks on the state's transmission network and allow more renewable generation to run without triggering stability constraints.

Mid-2025 · last year

China kept expanding strategic crude oil storage and filling it with discounted barrels

State reserve managers added underground and tank storage capacity and opportunistically filled it with sanctioned Russian and Iranian crude bought at a discount, pushing reserve cover further above the minimum industry norm.

• Sanctioned tankers supplied much of the crude

Early 2024 · 2 years ago

Japan and South Korea extended long-term LNG contracts to diversify supply away from Russian-linked cargoes

Buyers in both countries signed or extended long-term offtake agreements with suppliers in the United States, Qatar and Australia, and added onshore storage capacity, seeking greater security of winter supply after years of tight Asian spot markets.

Mid-2024 · 2 years ago

The United States continued refilling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve after the 2022 emergency drawdown

The Department of Energy issued repeated solicitations to repurchase crude for the reserve whenever prices fell within its target range, a slow rebuild after the largest drawdown in the reserve's history.

Late 2024 · 2 years ago

TotalEnergies resumed construction on its Mozambique LNG project

Work restarted on one of Africa's largest liquefied natural gas developments after a multi-year suspension following a 2021 insurgent attack in Cabo Delgado, with security conditions judged sufficiently improved to remobilise contractors.

2020s · this decade

Grid-scale battery storage became a mainstream utility asset class

Falling battery costs and growing shares of variable wind and solar generation turned standalone battery plants from a niche application into a standard tool for balancing electricity grids worldwide, led initially by China, the United States and Australia.