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Natural gas receiving station of the Eugal European gas pipeline connection
Photo: Stefan Sauer / dpa
The President of the Federal Network Agency, Klaus Müller, believes it is possible for consumer prices for gas to triple.
“If you extrapolate it, it depends a lot on how you heat, how your building is built.
But the previous gas bill can triple," said Müller on Thursday the broadcasters RTL / ntv.
Since the throttling of Russian gas supplies last week, the price level has risen again by 50 percent.
"Many gas importers say they would like to pass this on," said Müller.
However, the price adjustment clause would have to be activated for this.
Whether that happens depends very much on how the gas flows develop.
“We know that a maintenance window is looming on July 11th.
Nord Stream 1 will be shut down completely and we don't know what will happen afterwards."
On Thursday, the Economics Minister announced the second of three escalation levels of the gas emergency plan.
The federal government presented this after Russia's attack on Ukraine.
Now the alarm level follows because the Russian pipeline monopolist Gazprom has throttled the flow of gas through the important Baltic Sea pipeline Nord Stream 1 by 60 percent.
Many gas utilities are now in a dire situation as they have to buy gas at exorbitant prices.
There is a provision for such a scenario in the Energy Security Act: When the alarm level is declared, the gas supply companies can be granted a price adjustment right in a second step.
In this case, the gas suppliers are allowed to pass on the increased prices despite contractually guaranteed price maintenance - which would cause energy costs for consumers to explode.
ktz/dpa
