Berlin has announced that it will stop buying coal from Russia on August 1 and oil on December 31
Germany will completely stop buying coal from Russia August 1st and oil on December 31stcontinuing the major change that has begun in terms of its energy supply, emphasized the country’s Deputy Finance Minister Gerg Kukis during a press conference in Sydney.
But the big challenge he has in front of him Berlin will be to fill the huge void that will be created when the European Union stops buying natural gas from Moscow, the amount of which reaches 158 billion cubic meters annually, Mr. Kukis emphasized.
“We will stop buying Russian coal in a few weeks,” he told the Sydney Energy Forum, co-hosted by the Australian government and the International Energy Agency (IEA).
Russia supplied as recently 40% coal and 40% oil that Germany was consuming, Mr. Koukis recalled.
“For anyone who knows the history of the Druzhba pipeline, which was already a tool of the Soviet empire for domination in Eastern Europe” understands that “getting rid of this dependence is not a trivial thing, but it is something that we will achieve in a few months”, added the German deputy foreign minister.
Germany is building terminals to import liquefied natural gas (LNG) to begin filling the huge gas supply gap, but Gerg Kukis pointed out that the US and Qatar can only sell 30 billion cubic meters to Europe, an amount which is not enough.
“We can’t just imagine that this problem is going to go away.”
The deputy finance minister explained that Berlin is promoting its transition to zero greenhouse gas emissions and legislation to speed up projects to produce more energy from renewable sources, but gas is still absolutely necessary in Germany.
RES-EMP
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