NEW YORK, February 28. /TASS/. Some industrial enterprises in eastern Germany expect gas supplies from Russia to resume if a peace agreement on the conflict in Ukraine is reached, Bloomberg reported.
As the agency notes, industrialists in the region are "encouraged by the efforts of US President Donald Trump" to end hostilities in Ukraine. Resumption of supplies from Russia would allow businesses in Germany, which are facing many problems due to rising energy prices after refusing Russian gas, to restore their competitiveness.
Christian Gunther, head of one of Germany's largest chemical companies, Infraleuna GmbH, believes that cheap pipeline gas supplies would improve the economic situation in Germany. This would be a "logical consequence" of reaching a peace agreement on Ukraine. The growth of Germany's industrial potential is all the more important if Germany intends to provide assistance to Ukraine in its recovery, Gunther noted.
"If we can achieve peace and build long-term trust that Europe is not threatened by Russia, we must also be open to discussing the future supply of Russian gas," said Sven Schulze, the economy minister of Saxony-Anhalt and a member of the center-right CDU/CSU party.
As pointed out by Jonathan Stern, distinguished research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, the return of some Russian volumes would help lower gas prices in Europe. Transit through Ukraine, as well as the remaining Nord Stream line, could be used for this purpose.
Nevertheless, the process of resuming supplies cannot happen quickly, since many companies have already switched to liquefied natural gas (LNG) from other countries, and these supplies will also increase in the future. Moreover, concluding new contracts with Russian gas suppliers would take a long time, given the need to agree on new conditions, Stern adds.
Germany began to abandon supplies of Russian energy resources in February 2022. Germany does not receive gas via the Nord Stream pipelines either as both gas pipelines were damaged in 2022 as a result of sabotage in the Baltic Sea. Before that one of them had not been certified by the German side. In the current situation, the government is counting on the construction of terminals for receiving LNG.