So there was rarely a stressful summer break in Berlin. How much gas will Russia send back to Germany through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline after the end of the maintenance work? None at all, little or back to the amounts of yore? This Thursday will show that. A spokeswoman for Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) put it optimistically on Wednesday: It is assumed that the gas will flow again in full, as contractually agreed.
But when the microphones are off, the expectations in Berlin are different. Namely, that Russian President Vladimir Putin will turn on the gas tap just a little to keep fears of cold apartments and paralyzed industrial plants high in the winter. Signals recently came from Russia that only 30 million cubic meters of gas could be delivered per day. That would be 20 percent of the normal level.
According to the latest energy security report by the Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection, Russia’s share of German gas imports fell to 26 percent at the end of June. Last year, Germany received more than half of its gas supplies from Russia. The recent significant decline has to do with the fact that Russia cut deliveries through Nord Stream 1 to 40 percent of the agreed quantities in June.
This was justified with technical problems, the federal government considers this to be a pretext. Because no gas has flowed through the pipeline since maintenance work began on July 11 and only little or nothing at all through the other two connections, Russia’s share of gas imports in July is likely to be even lower. However, as usual, the ministry does not envisage independence from Russian gas until the summer of 2024.
The fact that German gas storage facilities are still about 65 percent full is due to the fact that the energy companies buy gas from other countries with the help of government loans, albeit at significantly higher world market prices. So far, companies have not been able to pass these price increases on to their existing customers. But that could change if the government’s rescue package for the ailing gas buyer Uniper stands. That is expected this week.
In a letter to the Energy and Climate Committee of the Bundestag, the Ministry of Economic Affairs outlined by Robert Habeck (Greens) what is being negotiated between the government, Uniper and the Finnish majority owner Fortum: The existing loans from the state-owned KfW-Bank are to be increased from 2 billion to 8 billion euros to be increased. According to the letter, the federal government is also planning to take a stake of up to 30 percent. This is to be achieved through a combination of a capital increase and further hybrid equity. “Furthermore, it is assumed that prices will be passed on in accordance with EnSiG in order to stop the daily losses from replacement procurement,” the paper continues. This is the point that is relevant for consumers: prices would then rise, and drastically, even in longer-term contracts. It is still unclear whether the high purchasing costs will be passed on to all consumers via a levy. In Berlin it is expected that the rescue of Uniper will have a similar dimension to the state aid for Lufthansa in the Corona crisis. At that time, the package of equity and loans had a volume of 9 billion euros.
