BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany is to nationalize natural gas importer Sefe, the former “Gazprom Germania”, the economy ministry announced on Monday, a decision that aims to avoid bankruptcy of the company and to definitively exclude Russian interests from its capital.
Sefe, from which the public giant Gazprom withdrew in April, is for the moment temporarily placed under the control of the Bundesnetzagentur (BNetzA), the regulatory body for the German gas market, and has benefited from around 10 billion euros in credit lines from Berlin.
But the company remains at risk of default as falling Russian gas imports forced it to turn to buying from the spot market, where prices have soared since the invasion of Ukraine in February. .
Full nationalization is needed to ensure the country’s continued energy supply, the economy ministry said,
Sefe (Securing Energy for Europe) will therefore be, after Uniper, the second German gas company to come under the direct control of the federal state since the start of the war in Ukraine.
Pursuant to a new law on energy security, the Ministry of the Economy ordered a reduction of the share capital, reduced from 225.6 million euros to zero, which amounts to reducing the value of the shares of Gazprom.
Sefe will then have to issue new shares for the same amount, which will be subscribed by the German State.
The European Commission has already given the green light to the operation.
(Report Christian Kraemer, French version Marc Angrand, edited by Matthieu Protard)
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