How to Read Gas Radar: Dutch TTF Positioning Against EU Gas Storage
30-second answer: Gas Radar is an Ultimate panel for Dutch TTF, Europe's benchmark gas contract. It sets two things side by side: where the speculative crowd sits in TTF, and how full Europe's gas storage is against what is normal for the time of year. Read together, they tell you whether the market is leaning into a comfortable storage picture or a tight one.
How to read the panel
Start with the gauge. The COT Index runs from 0 to 100 and shows where investment funds' net TTF position sits in its own three-year range. Above 80 the crowd is crowded long, below 20 crowded short. The positioning comes from the weekly reports EU trading venues publish under MiFID II.
Then the three storage readings, from Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE):
- EU gas in storage, against its five-year band. The band shows the range storage has held in the same week over the last five years. Above the band, Europe holds more gas than usual for the season; below it, less. This is the headline reading.
- Storage fill. The same inventory as a share of capacity. Policy targets are written in this unit, so it is the number officials and the press quote.
- Net injection. The average daily build or draw across the week. Positive means gas going into storage, negative means it coming out. The size tells you how fast the cushion is changing.
Check the dates. The positioning report and the storage week usually differ by several days. The panel prints both, so you know how far apart the two readings are.
Three questions it answers
- Is storage comfortable for the season? Where the stock sits against its band answers this at a glance.
- Is the crowd leaning the same way? Funds crowded long while storage sits well above its band is a different picture from funds crowded long into a thin cushion.
- Is the build speeding up or slowing down? Net injection week to week shows whether the season is running ahead of or behind the usual pace.
What you can do with it
- Follow the injection season. From spring to autumn, watch whether net injection keeps storage inside its band or lets it drift above or below. A drift out of the band is the moment to check how the crowd is positioned.
- Follow the heating season. Through the winter, the draw rate and the gap to the band tell you how quickly the cushion is being used.
- Compare Europe with the US. Open the natural gas panel on Energy Radar for Henry Hub against US storage, and see whether the two crowds are leaning the same way.
- Keep the US side on your chart. The COTInsight TradingView indicator puts Henry Hub's COT Index and z-score under price.
- Find it fast. Choose Gas Radar in the dashboard's Radar filter.
What it will not tell you
Gas Radar does not predict prices. TTF has no price series on COTInsight, so the panel carries no outcome statistics and no divergence flag: it tells you where positioning and storage sit, not what price did after similar readings. For the cohorts behind US gas positioning, read the COT report for natural gas traders.
Summary
Gas Radar shows where the TTF crowd sits and how Europe's storage compares with a normal year: the stock against its band, the fill, and the weekly build or draw. Use it through the injection and heating seasons, and alongside Henry Hub for the transatlantic picture. The judgment stays yours. Gas Radar is part of Ultimate; see pricing or open the dashboard.