German energy companies hit by Kremlin-imposed sanctions have been able to find alternatives to Russian gas, Economy Minister Robert Habeck said on Thursday (May 12), adding that the network regulator would provide details on the matter.
Russia has imposed sanctions mainly on European subsidiaries of state-owned Gazprom, including Gazprom Germania, an energy trading, storage and transmission business that Germany placed under trusteeship last month to secure supplies.
“We have a supply that no longer takes place, in the amount of 10 million cubic metres of gas daily from Russia”, Habeck told reporters during a news conference. “That is also an amount that can be compensated. And the companies are in the process of securring gas suplies through other sources.”
Habeck stated that Germany would not raise the emergency level from its current level as an expected drop of 3% of Russian gas deliveries as a result of the news sanctions could be compensated on the market albeit at higher prices. “This alert level is indicated when significant amounts of gas actually do not reach Germany. That is not the case,” he explained.
Russia’s sanctions and an EU plan to ban Russian oil imports drove up energy prices on Wednesday, highlighting the economic costs of the bloc’s push to untangle itself from the grip of Russian energy imports in response to the Ukraine invasion.
The decree signed by President Vladimir Putin forbids the export of products and raw materials to people and entities on the sanctions list, which includes the Polish part of the Yamal pipeline that carries Russian gas to Europe.
(Reuters)