After Russian pipeline stop: Emirates will supply liquid gas to Germany in the future

After Russian pipeline stop
Emirates will deliver liquid gas to Germany in the future

Chancellor Scholz does not return empty-handed from his trip to the United Arab Emirates. A new deal assures Germany of liquid gas from sheikh states. However, this does not compensate for the loss after the gas supply stop from Russia.

Germany receives liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United Arab Emirates as a substitute for the lack of energy supplies from Russia. During the visit of Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz to the Gulf state, the Essen-based energy company RWE signed a contract for the first delivery of 137,000 cubic meters of LNG. It is said to be the first delivery to arrive at the new LNG terminal in Brunsbüttel near Hamburg in December 2022. According to RWE, a memorandum on multi-year deliveries from 2023 has been signed.

For comparison: Before the war of aggression against Ukraine, gas with an energy volume of 1.7 million kilowatt hours flowed through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline on February 1 alone, according to the operator. The now agreed first delivery of 137,000 cubic meters of liquid gas for RWE by ship the United Arab Emirates corresponds to 1.37 million kilowatt hours.

Chancellor Scholz had engineered the deal together with his delegation in the Emirates. With regard to the efforts to ensure a broader supply of gas, he had previously emphasized that at the beginning of autumn one could say: “We’ll probably get through this winter.”

Natural gas storage at 90 percent

The filling level of German natural gas storage facilities was recently 90.5 percent, as reported by the Federal Network Agency. Germany currently receives natural gas via pipelines from Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium. At the turn of the year, a total of three terminals for landing liquefied natural gas (LNG) are to be put into operation on the North Sea and Baltic Sea coasts. The filling level of the largest German storage facility in Rehden in Lower Saxony is currently almost 75 percent. Due to planned maintenance of this storage facility, there has not been any injection or withdrawal since September 12th.

The storage facilities compensate for fluctuations in gas consumption and thus form a kind of buffer system for the gas market. They are usually well filled when the heating season begins in autumn. The filling levels then decrease until spring. In the past, on cold winter days, up to 60 percent of the gas consumption in Germany was covered by German storage facilities.

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