FRANKFURT (Dow Jones) — The Kremlin’s sanctions against Gazprom Germania and its subsidiaries could burden German taxpayers and gas consumers with additional costs of more than 5 billion euros a year, according to a newspaper report. Because Russia no longer delivers to the German company, a replacement must be procured. As of October, part of the resulting additional costs is to be passed on to the energy suppliers and thus to the end customers in the form of a gas levy, reports Die Welt am Sonntag. Corresponding information from the newspaper had been confirmed by several industry representatives.
The Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection did not want to comment on the specific amount of the costs incurred by Moscow’s counter-sanctions to Welt am Sonntag. No one could be reached at short notice from the ministry on Saturday evening for comment.
Moscow had stopped supplying the German Gazprom subsidiary with a decree dated May 11 because the federal government had placed the company under trusteeship. Since then, the Federal Network Agency, as the responsible trustee, has had to procure replacement gas on the market so that the company can continue to fulfill the supply contracts with German municipal utilities and regional suppliers. According to the newspaper, Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens) estimates the required amount at 10 million cubic meters per day, which would currently mean a burden on the federal budget of around 3.5 billion euros a year.
According to the newspaper report, further costs arise from the filling of the natural gas storage facility in Rehden in Lower Saxony, which Habeck ordered last Wednesday. Accordingly, 3.1 billion cubic meters of gas are missing there at the current spot market price of around 2.5 billion euros. From October, the amount can be passed on to regional suppliers and municipal utilities. These, in turn, are likely to place a corresponding burden on end consumers.
Contact the author: [email protected]
DJG/sha
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 04, 2022 19:00 ET (23:00 GMT)
Leverage must be between 2 and 20
No data