Country: Own gas costs could be five times as high

Created: 07/03/2022 10:09 am

The New Castle in Stuttgart with the offices of the Ministry of Finance and Economics.

© Marijan Murat/dpa/archive image

The country is hardly any different than the average consumer.

The high inflation and the sharp rise in energy prices hit the office.

Even harder than previously expected.

Stuttgart - Gas prices are exploding because of the throttling of Russian deliveries and will also put a heavy strain on the budget in Baden-Württemberg.

In 2021, the state spent 17 million euros on the gas supply for around 8,000 state buildings.

"Assuming a tripling of the gas price, around 51 million euros in costs for the gas supply would be expected for 2023," said a spokesman for the Ministry of Finance of the German Press Agency in Stuttgart.

But this original assumption of a tripling is probably already outdated.

Purchasing on the energy exchange is already in progress, "so that according to the available projection, the costs of gas purchases will be four to five times higher than in 2021".

In the worst case, the costs would be 85 million euros for 2023. There would also be additional costs for district heating, which cannot be quantified at the moment, the spokesman explained.

After the federal government declared the alarm level for the gas emergency plan, Finance Minister Danyal Bayaz (Greens) had already predicted that gas prices would multiply.

That will get to the bottom of citizens and companies and also put a massive strain on public budgets.

The green-black coalition has built a risk buffer of one billion euros into the key points for the double budget 2023/24, with which the additional costs due to high inflation and higher energy prices are to be absorbed.

dpa