Enlarge image
The RWE gas power plant in Hamm: The head of the energy giant advocates a model similar to that used for oil reserves
Photo:
Rupert Oberhäuser / IMAGO
Because gas is becoming scarcer in Europe this winter than it has been for a long time, fear of the cold is increasing among citizens.
Now it depends solely on the weather whether the capacities are sufficient, because the filling levels of the natural gas storage facilities continue to fall, the value is now just over 40 percent.
In view of the bottlenecks on the natural gas market, the boss of the energy company RWE, Markus Krebber, is now calling for state intervention to improve security of supply.
"This can go in the direction of state stockpiling, as with oil," Krebber told the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung".
Alternatively, stricter regulation is conceivable, so that »gas suppliers have to secure certain parts of their delivery obligations through long-term purchase contracts or storage.
In Germany we have a gap in the regulations."
The lower filling levels are mainly the work of Gazprom.
According to its own statements, Russia's state monopoly fulfills its contracts.
But little more than that. Since the beginning of October, Gazprom has been exporting significantly less to Europe than in previous years.
And this despite the fact that the company could achieve top prices for its fuel.
In the first three weeks of 2022, Gazprom only delivered an average of 1.74 billion cubic meters, almost never in the past seven years.
Storage in Rehden accounts for almost two thirds of the gas gap
And although Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin announced in the fall that Gazprom would fill up its reservoirs in Germany and Austria, this has not happened.
On the contrary: the huge natural gas storage facility of the Gazprom subsidiary Astora in Rehden, Lower Saxony, is only four percent full.
Almost 15 terawatt hours less fuel is stored in this storage facility than at the same time a year ago.
In total, around 23 terawatt hours are missing in Germany compared to last year, if you add up the reserves in the storage facilities of all operators.
But the calculation also makes it clear that the Gazprom storage facility in Rehden alone accounts for almost two-thirds of the entire gas gap.
According to Krebber, a complete failure of the Russian deliveries could only be bridged for “a very short time.
Maybe a few weeks«.
According to the report, the RWE boss therefore advocated greater diversification of the gas supply by building import ports for liquid gas.
Political support for this is required because import ports will also be needed in the future for the import of green energies such as hydrogen or ammonia.
Natural gas plays a key role in the energy system, Krebber said.
»After the nuclear and coal phase-out, the security of our power supply depends on gas until sufficient green hydrogen is available.«
che/hba/dpa
