Germany launched the second phase of its three-stage emergency gas program on Thursday, warning that Germany is facing a crisis that could worsen in the coming months.
“The situation is serious and winter will come,” Germany’s economic minister, Robert Habeck, said at a press conference in Berlin. The third phase of the plan will allow the government to start gas distribution.
“We’re in a gas crisis, even if we don’t feel it yet,” he said. “Gas is a rare commodity in the future. Prices are already high and we need to prepare for further increases. This will affect industrial production and will be a heavy burden for many consumers.”
The announcement will come a week after Russia’s national energy giant Gazprom has reduced the amount of natural gas it supplies to Germany by 60%. This seems to be the latest move to punish Europe with sanctions and military aid against Ukraine.
Mr Habeck called the reduction of Gazprom a deliberate economic attack by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Obviously, Putin’s strategy is to create anxiety, push prices up, and divide us as a society,” he said.
Since late March, when Germany entered the first phase of the plan, the government has focused on increasing gas storage, which has a capacity of more than 58%. However, activating the second phase of the emergency plan means that the government considers the risk of long-term supply shortages high.
On Wednesday, the German government approved a € 15 billion, or $ 15.7 billion, loan facility for utilities to buy natural gas to fill their storage facilities. In addition, the government plans to launch a program to help gas systems deal with it by encouraging businesses to temporarily stop using gas. Unused fuel will be available to other industrial users at the lowest prices.
However, the government has decided not to allow gas suppliers to pass on soaring energy costs to their customers after companies oppose the measure.
German companies were looking for alternative energy sources and ways to save gas, and Mr Habeck said they were able to reduce their use by about 8 percent in the last few weeks. The government has also passed a law allowing utilities to reopen coal-fired power plants that were closed or planned to be phased out. The Netherlands and Austria have taken similar steps.
Still, the shortage caused gas prices to rise abnormally, about six times higher than they were a year ago. Habeck warned that high prices are costing energy providers and threatening the entire energy market.
“If this negative is too big to hold up, there is a danger that the entire market will collapse at some point,” Habeck said, similar to how the collapse of Lehman Brothers caused the global financial crisis. doing.
Nord Stream 1, the main pipeline that supplies Russian gas to Germany, is scheduled for regular maintenance for about two weeks from July 11th, and the flow will stop, so Gazprom will take advantage of this situation. Delivery may be suspended for a longer period of time.
