BERLIN, June 24. /TASS/. Without Russian gas, Germany can last for 2.5 months of an average winter if its gas storage facilities are filled to the capacity, the head of Germany’s national regulator has said.
"If [gas] storages are mathematically 100% full, we would manage to last without any Russian gas at all for two and a half months. Then the storages will be empty," President of the German Federal Network Agency Klaus Muller told CDF television in an interview.
The official views the current situation with gas deliveries to Germany as tense, but nevertheless still stable.
At the same time, he stressed that Germany needs to find additional gas suppliers and save gas whenever possible.
On June 14, Russian energy giant Gazprom said it was forced to lower natural gas supplies via Nord Stream against the schedule due to untimely return of gas pumping units from repair by Siemens and identified malfunctions of engines. Siemens Energy claims that after the repair one of the gas pumping units for the North Stream cannot be returned to Germany from Montreal because of Canada’s sanctions against Russia. Due to this, Gazprom is currently using only 40% of Nord Stream capacity to ship gas.
Vice-Chancellor of Germany, Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection Robert Habeck called for a reduction in gas consumption in the country in light of the decrease in gas supplies via Nord Stream and called the situation a "gas crisis".