Government estimates that Germany can get by without Russian gas – if it doesn’t get cold
“A war would result in a significant increase in gas prices”
Germany gets 34 percent of its crude oil from Russia. The natural gas share is 50 percent. The Ifo Institute warns that this might spell doom for Germany in a war in Ukraine.
Even if Russia were to stop natural gas supplies altogether, Germany would get through the winter. According to a media report, the government calculated this. However, the forecast only holds if there is no longer cold snap.
DThe federal government’s concerns regarding a supply bottleneck in natural gas have apparently decreased. According to current calculations, Germany is likely to get through the winter even if Russia were to completely stop its natural gas supplies, reported the “Spiegel“ on Monday from government circles. The remaining reserves in the German storage facilities and the liquefied gas, which can be bought through short-term contracts, would be sufficient to ensure the supply.
The prerequisite is that the temperatures are around the long-term average, it said. In the event of a prolonged cold snap, this scenario does not apply. Experts recently predicted to WELT AM SONNTAG that a short-term replacement of energy from Russia, for example following an escalation of the Ukraine conflict, would be difficult or impossible.
The supply situation on the German and European gas market is currently very tight. According to calculations by the industry service S&P Global Platts, which was available to “Spiegel”, Russia’s main exporter, the state-owned company Gazprom, delivered just under 130 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe in 2021. This is around 31 percent less than the average in the previous five years. At the beginning of 2022, deliveries even fell a little.
According to everything that is known, Gazprom is fulfilling its long-term supply contracts but, unlike usual, is not selling any additional gas on the spot market, the magazine further reported. According to current figures from the European association Gas Infrastructure Europe, the capacity of German gas storage facilities is currently around 31 percent.
