(Updated with precision, Hungarian supplies)
FRANKFURT, June 19 (Reuters) – Germany announced new measures on Sunday to replenish its gas reserves ahead of next winter lest Russia, which has cut deliveries in recent days, shut down further, or even totally, the faucet.
The country, highly dependent on Russian gas, will provide additional credit lines of 15 billion euros for the purchase of gas to accelerate storage, DPA news agency reported, citing a document from the Minister of Economy.
According to a government source, these credit lines will be released through the public bank KfW
They will enable the German operator Trading Hub Europe (THE) to help Germany replenish its reserves in the event of an interruption in Russian deliveries in the context of the conflict in Ukraine.
Contacted by Reuters, the ministry confirmed the DPA information. The agency specifies for its part that the origin of the gas which will be stored has not been communicated.
Storage operations have become a strategic issue for Germany since Russia reduced the capacity of the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline by 60%, undermining the German objective of rebuilding its stocks to 80% by October, and to 90 % by November.
According to data from Gas Infrastructure Europe, German gas stocks stood at 57.03% as of June 17, down from 29.69% on February 24, the day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Germany’s economy ministry also announced that reintroducing coal-fired power plants into the country’s energy mix could add around 10 gigawatts of capacity in the event of a critical gas supply situation.
“It’s painful, but it’s simply necessary in this situation to reduce gas consumption, said Economy Minister Robert Habeck in a statement. His party, the Greens, had on the contrary pushed for an accelerated exit. coal.
“It’s obviously (Russian President Vladimir Putin’s) strategy to put us in a precarious situation, to drive up prices, and to divide us. We won’t allow that to happen,” he added.
Russia has also promised to continue gas deliveries to Hungary and assured that Gazprom will honor its contractual commitments to the country, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said in an interview on public radio on Sunday.
Russian deliveries to Europe, on the other hand, fell short of demand on Friday, with Italy and Slovakia notably indicating that they had received less than half of the usual volumes via the Nordstream 1 gas pipeline.
(Christoph Steitz and Andreas Rinke, Gilles Guillaume for the French version)