Status: 08.04.2022 2:39 p.m
According to a DIW study, Germany could still manage without Russian natural gas deliveries this year. To do this, imports from countries like Norway or the Netherlands would have to be expanded and gas consumption reduced.
According to a study, Germany could do without Russian natural gas supplies before the end of this year, earlier than the federal government had predicted. This is the result of a recent study by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW). “If the energy-saving potential is used to the maximum and at the same time deliveries from other natural gas supplying countries are expanded as far as technically possible, the German supply of natural gas is secured even without Russian imports in the current year and in the coming winter of 2022/23,” is the conclusion of the Investigation.
The federal government has so far assumed that an exit from Russian gas will take much longer: Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck expects that Germany will have to purchase Russian gas until mid-2024. Russia recently supplied around 55 percent of the natural gas for Germany. Because of the Russian attack on Ukraine, the federal government wants to stop imports from there as soon as possible.
“Construction of LNG terminals does not make sense”
The institute has calculated various scenarios of how Germany’s gas supply could work without supplies from Russia. For this it is necessary, as planned, to fill up the German natural gas storage tanks to 80 to 90 percent before the start of the heating period. To achieve this, more liquid gas could be sourced from Norway and the Netherlands, as well as through terminals in neighboring countries. In addition, floating terminals for liquefied natural gas on the German coast could be used.
However, the institute emphasized that fixed terminals do not make sense for Germany: “The construction of LNG import terminals on the coast does not make sense due to the long construction times and the sharp drop in demand for natural gas in the medium term,” writes the author team Robin Sogalla, Christian von Hirschhausen, Franziska Holz and Claudia Kemfert.
The DIW also considers major savings to be necessary: According to the calculations, 18 to 26 percent less natural gas consumption is also quite possible. For example, private households should heat less than usual and use less hot water, while industry should generate heat with electricity, coal or biomass. Economic researchers assume that industry can reduce its natural gas consumption by up to a third. However, production would also temporarily drop significantly.
companies are concerned
On the other hand, the concerns of German companies with regard to measures such as a throttling of the gas supply are great. Klaus Müller, President of the Federal Network Agency, reported in an interview with the “Handelsblatt” about worried letters and calls from companies that are urgently dependent on gas.
In view of a possible gas embargo, he added: “Unfortunately, it cannot be completely ruled out that we will have to make decisions that have terrible consequences for companies, for jobs, for value chains, for supply chains, for entire regions.” Because the levels in the gas storage tanks are at an all-time low: According to Müller, the storage facility in Rehden is “less than one percent full”.