Trade bans on behalf of Putin
Moscow puts Gazprom Germania on the sanctions list
05/12/2022, 04:40 am
Not only the delivery, but also the storage of natural gas in Germany is under the influence of Russia. With the invasion of the Ukraine, that should gradually change. Moscow is reacting to the West’s increasing decoupling with countermeasures.
Russia has imposed sanctions on Gazprom Germania and other former subsidiaries of its state-owned gas company. With a total of 31 listed companies, no more business should be done from the Russian side, it said. The Russian government published an order on Wednesday according to which the trade bans come into force on behalf of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin. Gazprom Germania was placed under German state control at the beginning of April.
A spokeswoman for the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection said in Berlin: “We are evaluating these announcements. We still have no details.” The Federal Government and the Federal Network Agency, as Gazprom Germania’s trustee, are already preparing for various scenarios. “The gas crisis team is closely monitoring the current situation. Security of supply is currently guaranteed and is constantly being checked,” said the spokeswoman.
Gazprom Germania owns other important companies in the German gas industry. These include the gas trader Wingas, which supplies public utilities, among other things, and the gas storage operator Astora. They are also affected by the Russian sanctions. According to the Russian agency Interfax, the creation of stocks of Russian gas in Europe’s storage facilities will be banned in the future. It is still unclear how such a ban would be enforced. In Germany there are 47 underground storage facilities at 33 locations operated by around 25 companies.
Gas storage compensates for fluctuations in gas consumption and thus forms a kind of buffer system for the gas market. The storage tanks are usually well filled at the beginning of the heating period in autumn, and the levels then decrease by spring. On cold winter days, up to 60 percent of gas consumption in Germany is covered by German storage facilities. According to the new storage law, they should be 90 percent full by November 1st. Last Monday, the storage tanks were almost 39 percent full – and the trend is rising.
The largest gas storage tank is only 0.6 percent full
The largest storage operator in Germany is the energy group Uniper, which accounts for around a quarter of Germany’s storage capacity. However, the largest single storage facility is operated by the Gazprom Germania subsidiary Astora, which is subject to the new sanctions. The storage facility is located in Rehden in Lower Saxony. It accounts for around a fifth of German capacity. Most recently, however, there was hardly any gas stored in the Rehden storage facility, the filling level was 0.6 percent at the beginning of last week. Filling only started again at the end of last week. “We are working intensively on the procurement of larger quantities of gas for this storage facility,” said the Federal Network Agency last week. The aim is to reach a filling level of 80 percent by October 1st.
The companies affected by the counter-sanctions in Germany, in other EU countries, in the USA and in Great Britain were hit with Western sanctions in the course of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. The operators of gas storage facilities are particularly affected by the Russian counter-sanctions, as are the owners who operate the Polish part of the Yamal pipeline, which runs from Russia to Europe. Russia had previously stopped supplying gas to Poland.
At the beginning of April, Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck temporarily appointed the Federal Network Agency as a trustee for the German subsidiary of the Russian state-owned company Gazprom. Habeck justified this with unclear legal relationships and a violation of reporting regulations. The aim is to ensure security of supply. Gazprom is still Germany’s largest gas supplier.