Germany will stop buying coal and oil from Russia

Germany will completely stop buying coal from Russia on August 1 and oil on December 31, continuing the major change it has begun in its energy supply, the country’s Deputy Finance Minister Gerg Kukis said during a news conference in Sydney.

But the big challenge ahead of Berlin will be to fill the huge gap that will be created when the European Union stops buying natural gas from Moscow, the amount of which reaches 158 billion cubic meters annually, stressed the Mr. Kukis.

“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 until recently 40% of the coal and 40% of the oil consumed by Germany, Mr. Kukis 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.

SOURCE: AMPE