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Refinery in Schwedt (archive image)
Photo: Patrick Pleul / dpa
The supply should last around 90 days to supply companies and consumers in Germany with petrol, oil or diesel: Germany wants to arm itself for crises with a strategic oil reserve.
But even before the Russian attack on Ukraine, German oil reserves were at their lowest level since 2015, according to the Hamburg Senate.
On January 31, 2022, 22.6 million tons of crude oil, fuel and heating materials were stored, the Senate said in response to a small inquiry from the AfD parliamentary group.
On March 31, 2021, stocks were still 23.3 million tonnes of crude oil equivalent.
However, slight fluctuations in inventories are not unusual: the lowest level to date was reached on March 31, 2018 at 22.7 million tons, the highest in March 2016 when 23.6 million tons of crude oil, fuel and heating fuels in tanks and caverns stored.
Three weeks ago, the federal government released part of the national oil reserve as a reaction to the Ukraine war and to calm the oil market.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the agency's 31 member countries should release 60 million barrels of crude oil.
Germany wanted to contribute 434,000 tons of oil, corresponding to its share of 5.4 percent in the oil consumption of the IEA countries.
The oil storage association, which secures the strategic oil reserve in Germany, keeps according to its own information at all times as much oil and oil products as was imported on average within 90 days in the previous three years.
The deposits are spread all over Germany.
According to the association, crude oil is stored in underground caverns, including in Wilhelmshaven-Rüstringen, Bremen-Lesum, Heide in Schleswig-Holstein and Sottorf near Hamburg.
According to the Senate, more than 21,000 tons of petrol and a good 149,000 tons of diesel fuel and heating oil were stored in the Hanseatic city itself at the end of June 2021.
mic/dpa-AFX
