Status: 04.03.2023 6:00 p.m
Apparently, Germany has almost compensated for the loss of Russian gas imports. According to data from the Federal Agency, deliveries from Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands replaced the monthly quantities. However, the authorities did not give the all-clear.
Before the war against Ukraine, enormous amounts of natural gas flowed from Russia to Germany. But in late summer 2022, the Kremlin, the most important supplier, cut deliveries. According to data from the Federal Network Agency, Germany has now almost been able to compensate for this loss.
The missing gas volumes were replaced by significantly increased imports from Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium. This emerges from an internal paper from the network agency that is available to the dpa news agency.
LNG terminals on German coasts
According to this, Germany received an average of 77.0 terawatt hours of natural gas per month from gross imports from 2017 to the end of February 2022. The amounts were used to cover national consumption and to fill storage facilities. In contrast, the net import from September 2022 to the end of January – i.e. without Russian gas deliveries – was 72.7 terawatt hours per month.
In addition, around four terawatt hours of liquefied natural gas came from the new LNG terminals on the German coasts in January. To classify the quantities: According to the Federal Network Agency, Germany consumed around 1000 terawatt hours of natural gas in 2021. According to the paper, Germany forwarded significantly less gas to other countries – there were declines in Switzerland in particular.
41 terawatt hours from Norway
According to the paper, an average of 26 terawatt hours of natural gas flowed from Norway to Germany every month from 2017 to the end of February 2022. After the suspension of Russian deliveries, this amount was 41 terawatt hours. Net imports from the Netherlands increased from two to 25 terawatt hours.
With Belgium, gas flows were balanced before the war with an average monthly volume of around two terawatt hours in both directions. Since September, around 23 terawatt hours of natural gas have only flowed in one direction every month: from Belgium to Germany.
No all-clear for the end of the year
The Federal Network Agency continues to rate the gas supply in Germany as “stable”. “The security of supply is guaranteed,” it said recently in the daily gas situation report of the authority. The authority does not give the all-clear: preparing for the winter of 2023/2024 is a key challenge. Economical gas consumption therefore remains important.