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Uniper's Bierwang natural gas storage facility near Munich
Photo: Matthias Schrader/AP
The gas levy is intended to relieve energy companies - according to a media report, other companies now want to take advantage of the levy.
The Austrian OMV, the Swiss energy trading company Axpo and Sefe, formerly Gazprom Germania, are said to have applied to participate, as the "Handelsblatt" reported, citing the companies.
According to insiders, the Dutch-Swiss commodities trader Vitol and its Swiss competitor Gunvor are also on the list, the “Handelsblatt” continued.
According to the report, Vitol himself did not want to comment.
Upon request, Gunvor only confirmed that the company imports gas to Germany.
It had previously become known that Uniper, the EnBW subsidiary VNG and the supplier EWE wanted to use the gas surcharge.
The RWE group, on the other hand, announced that it did not want to do this.
Gas importers are currently being forced to buy expensive alternative gas to meet their contracts due to curtailed Russian supplies.
In order to avoid imbalances and ultimately ensure security of supply, they can pass on 90 percent of the resulting additional costs from October - these are to be distributed to all end customers via the gas levy.
(Read more details here. )
Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced on Thursday that the government wanted to reduce the VAT rate on natural gas from 19 to 7 percent for a limited period until 2024.
With the step, the gas customers should be relieved overall much more than they are burdened by the state gas surcharge.
(Read a comment on this here.)
So far, hardly any companies have been dependent on state aid
The "Handelsblatt" report said that very few companies that are to benefit from the gas allocation system are dependent on state aid.
For Uniper, the federal government had put together a rescue package worth 15 billion euros to protect the company from bankruptcy.
Sefe is managed by the Federal Network Agency in trusteeship.
The other companies mentioned are "in pretty good shape," the newspaper wrote.
The head of the Federation of Consumer Organizations (vzbv), Ramona Pop, warned against supporting the wrong companies.
"The federal government has clearly stated that it wants to prevent insolvencies with the gas surcharge, but that it should rule out securing profits at the expense of consumers," she told the "Handelsblatt".
It is urgently necessary that companies "who want to benefit from the levy despite bubbling profits are not given any support".
kko/AFP
