BERLIN (Realist English). Germany is no longer dependent on gas, coal or oil from Russia, the German government says.
Russian gas imports decreased from 55% of the total volume at the beginning of 2022 to almost zero, and oil imports — from 40% to zero.
On January 3, Germany received the first standard LNG shipment to one of the newly built terminals in the North Sea: the American vessel Maria Energy arrived at the newly built floating terminal in the port of Wilhelmshaven.
Currently, the price of gas on the European spot market has returned to the level of February last year, and oil prices have returned to the level of January last year, European Commissioner for Foreign and Security Policy Josep Borrel said.
“However, energy prices remain high, and 2023 promises to be another difficult year in terms of gas supply. In particular, we decided to jointly purchase 15% of our gas reserves this year, and set a maximum price for gas in order to limit excessive speculative expectations in this market,” Borrel stressed.
Since January 1, the German government has stopped importing Russian oil through the Druzhba pipeline. The EU embargo on the import of Russian oil by sea came into force on December 5, but pipeline flows to landlocked EU member states are not subject to the ban.
In turn, the UK has stopped all imports of liquefied natural gas from Russia.
Earlier, Moscow announced that from February 1, 2023, it would ban for five months the supply of crude oil and petroleum products to countries that had agreed to limit prices for Russian offshore oil in the range of $60 per barrel.
