Germany has allocated about three billion euros ($3.2 billion) to secure terminals for importing liquefied natural gas, the Finance Ministry announced on Friday, at a time when Europe’s largest economic power seeks to reduce its dependence on Russian gas.
“Dependence on Russian energy imports must be reduced rapidly and sustainably,” Finance Minister Christian Londoner said on Twitter.
He added that “floating LNG stations contribute significantly to this, and therefore we have to allocate funding for them.”
The Finance Ministry told AFP that 2.94 billion euros had been allocated for the leasing of these giant LNG carriers.
Europe, especially Germany, is counting on liquefied natural gas to reduce its dependence on Russian imports after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
About 20 countries, led by Australia, Qatar and the United States, export this liquefied gas, which is transported by sea.
Once the LNG is transported, it is regasified and distributed as natural gas.
Floating stations allow LNG that is loaded on a tanker to be converted into gas and pumped into the pipeline network.
And European countries announced last week to intensify their efforts to reduce their dependence on Russian gas.
Russia is a major producer of fossil fuels and contributed about 45 percent of gas imports into the European Union last year, but the bloc is under pressure to impose sanctions on Russian oil and gas imports.
On average, in recent years Germany has imported 55 percent of the gas it needs from Russia via offshore pipelines.
This percentage decreased to 40% by the first quarter of 2022, in favor of increasing imports from the Netherlands and Norway, in addition to liquefied natural gas, according to the Ministry of Economy.
But unlike a number of European countries, Germany does not have an onshore plant to process imported LNG.
It currently relies on terminals in other EU countries, which limits its ability to import.
According to German media reports, the government is studying, in cooperation with private sector partners, the possibility of chartering three or four ships stationed in the ports of the North Sea or the Baltic for this purpose.
Some of these facilities could be operational by next winter.
The government points out that reality requires it not to give up Russian gas before the middle of the year 2024.