A spokeswoman for the Karlsruhe group told the German Press Agency that EnBW’s business premises were searched on January 25 of this year. “EnBW is confident that the allegations will not be confirmed and is very interested in an unconditional, comprehensive, absolutely complete and quick clarification of the facts.”
According to the spokeswoman, the starting point for the search were short-term high price fluctuations for energy for grid stabilization (balancing energy) on the market, which the authorities believe should be investigated more closely. “The period examined is 2021, before the energy crisis.” According to the newspaper report, three employees from the electricity trading area are accused, not managers.
The Bundeskartellamt said it had searched “an energy supplier” with the public prosecutor’s office in Mannheim and the criminal police. A spokesman told the dpa that the basis was a court search warrant, which requires an initial suspicion of a violation of competition law. A search serves to clarify the facts and expressly does not mean that the companies and persons concerned are actually guilty of violating competition law. “The presumption of innocence applies until the end of the proceedings.”
EnBW increases bookings for LNG terminal in Stade
The energy group EnBW has increased its bookings for the planned liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in Stade, giving the project further impetus.
After an initial booking of three billion cubic meters last year, EnBW has now doubled this to six billion cubic meters, the supplier and the operator consortium Hanseatic Energy Hub (HEH) announced on Tuesday. All bookings included the option to switch to ammonia as a hydrogen-based fuel at a later date. The plant on the Elbe will have an annual capacity of 13.3 billion cubic meters. An investment decision is expected in the middle of the year.
“The majority of our capacities have now been marketed for the long term,” said the managing director and co-shareholder of the Hanseatic Energy Hub, Johann Killinger. This means that important commercial groundwork has been laid for the implementation of the project. The project is supported by the Belgian network operator Fluxys, the Swiss investment company Partners Group, the logistics group Buss and the chemical giant Dow.
EnBW pointed out that the conversion from liquefied natural gas to hydrogen-based energy carriers such as ammonia is already planned in Stade. “The cooperation with the Hanseatic Energy Hub fits very well into our efforts to become climate-neutral by 2035,” explained Georg Stamatelopoulos, Board Member for Sustainable Generation Infrastructure.
(Report by Vera Eckert, Tom Käckenhoff; edited by Sabine Wollrab. If you have any questions, please contact our editorial team at [email protected] (for politics and the economy) or [email protected] (for companies and markets) .)
EnBW’s shares temporarily lost 2.01 percent to EUR 87.80 via XETRA.
KARLSRUHE/STUTTGART (dpa-AFX) /
Dusseldorf (Reuters)
Leverage must be between 2 and 20
No data
More news about EnBW
Image sources: EnBW