RWE: Threat of gas shortages still persists in Germany

According to RWE CEO, Markus Krebber, Germany still faces the threat of natural gas shortages. He said so earlier this month in an interview with WirtschaftsWoche. Storage facilities are nevertheless almost completely full, and Europe could hardly be better prepared for the slowly approaching winter season. Even so, the threat of natural gas shortages remains, particularly in view of two major risks: the weather, specifically extreme cold, and attacks on existing gas infrastructure. 

“There is no buffer in the gas system,” Krebber said, adding that Europe must continue to expand its import capacity (regasification facilities for receiving liquefied natural gas – LNG). “If the coming winter is significantly colder than average or supply is disrupted, this could lead to a critical situation in which neither supply outages nor a sharp rise in gas prices can be ruled out.”

The German association INES, for example, reached a similar conclusion to Krebber. So far, however, temperatures have been working in the EU’s favor. Last September, for example, was far warmer than average in the Czech Republic. This was reflected in natural gas consumption: persistently high temperatures meant that the heating season had not yet started in many parts of the Czech Republic, as it usually does at this time of year.