Germany Warns It Will Act to Secure Sufficient Gas Storage

(Bloomberg) -- Germany will step in if gas-storage operators fail to fill facilities sufficiently to comply with new requirements, as the government takes a tougher line to secure supplies for next winter.

Under the new rules -- approved by the upper house of parliament on Friday and due to take effect May 1 -- operators must fill storage facilities to 90% capacity by Nov. 1.

With gas storage 26% full now, the current daily additions of 0.3 to 0.5 percentage points mean it could take until late October to reach capacity, Economy Minister Robert Habeck said Friday in the Bundesrat, where Germany’s 16 states are represented. If sufficient progress isn’t made over the summer, the government will take action, he said.

“I would never have thought that an energy minister would have to say such things in the Bundesrat, but that’s the hard, brutal mathematics of energy policy” after decades of building up a reliance on Russia, Habeck said.

GERMANY INSIGHT: Scholz Vs Model Geeks - Who’s Right on Gas?

The new legislation is part of Berlin’s reaction to concerns about energy security following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government has said it wants to cut the share of Russian gas to around 10% of total imports of the fuel by mid-2024, from around 40% now.

According to the law, storage facilities must be 80% full by Oct. 1 and can fall to 40% by Feb. 1. Users of the facilities must fill the storage capacities they have booked, otherwise they will be withdrawn.

As part of its effort to safeguard gas supplies, the government said this week it will temporarily take control of a German unit of Russia’s Gazprom PJSC.

Gazprom Germania GmbH -- owner of energy supplier Wingas GmbH and a gas storage firm -- will come under the trusteeship of the German energy regulator until Sept. 30.

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.