Germany will completely end its dependence on some types of Russian energy this year: it will stop buying coal on August 1 and oil on December 31, Deputy Finance Minister Joerg Kukies announced on Wednesday. Speaking at the Sydney Energy Forum amid gas shortage concerns, Kukies accused Moscow of having “blatant disregard” due to contractual obligations “using gas as a weapon. His comments came after Gazprom cut the flow of gas to Germany through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline by 60% last month, citing sanctions-related issues. Kukies, however, said his country was placed under “this concentrated risk of obtaining energy in such a poorly diversified way from one source.”
The Vice Minister of Finance explained that in order to diversify energy sources, his country is accelerating the promotion of renewables. However, instead of switching directly from fossil fuels to renewable energy, it must change “from fossil fuels, including Russia, to fossil fuels, excluding Russia, to renewable energies,”adding that by doing”simultaneously adds complexity”, but the first goal will be achieved very soon.
“We’ll be out of Russian coal in a few weeks. Aug 1: full sanction, zero volume of coal from Russia, used to be 40% of our coal mix,” he said. Russian oil also made up 40% of Germany’s imports, but “will be zero” after December 31, according to Kukies.
“As you can imagine, anyone who knows the history of the Druzhba pipeline, which was already a tool of the Soviet Empire over Eastern Europe, getting rid of that dependency is not a trivial matter, but it is something that we will achieve in a few months.”, he added.
Kukies said that Germany “accelerated the path to independence from Russian gas” by building LNG infrastructure quickly.
“The first LNG ship is expected to sail into the port of Hamburg at the end of this year or early 2023.,” he said.
However, some German media have reported that the government’s LNG plan will not work because the country does not have enough tankers and could face severe gas shortages this winter. In mid-June, the flow of gas through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline was reduced due to operational problems caused by the failure to return a turbine, which was sent to Canada for maintenance, due to sanctions on Russia. Russia has consistently denied Western accusations that it uses oil and gas as a political weapon. A few days ago, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that “Russia consistently fulfills all its obligations, and is still capable of ensuring the full energy security of Europe.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has previously accused EU leaders of making economic mistakes.suicide” when trying to give up Russian energy.