Germany learned a lesson from the war in Ukraine that it shouldn’t depend on just one country for its energy supplies, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in an interview.
(Bloomberg) — Germany learned a lesson from the war in Ukraine that it shouldn’t depend on just one country for its energy supplies, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in an interview.
Energy has dominated the start of Scholz’s tenure after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine exposed the fragility of Germany’s security. With Russia supplying 55% of the nation’s gas before the war, Scholz’s administration was forced into urgent action to head off concerns about shortages this winter.
Those fears have abated for now as mild temperatures and efforts to reduce gas use, including reactivating mothballed coal-fired power plants, have kept storage facilities about 90% full. But longer term challenges to reverse decades of building up reliance on Russia remain.
“We have to learn our lesson from the war and a lot of other big problems we are facing, and this is: we should differentiate our supply chains, we shouldn’t go for one country alone,” Scholz said Tuesday in an interview with Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait.
The government’s main strategy has been to diversify suppliers by opening terminals to import liquefied natural gas from countries such as the US and Qatar. Two temporary facilities are operating and a third is set to open Friday. Altogether, the government has chartered five such facilities.
“We will build a capacity that will give us the chance to have as much gas as we had before this war,” Scholz said.
Read More: Scholz Sees Germany Riding Out War in Ukraine Without Recession
–With assistance from Arne Delfs, Iain Rogers, Josefine Fokuhl and Alexander Weber.
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