Struggle for gas: OMV secures further pipeline capacities
For the coming gas year – October 1, 2022 to September 30, 2023 – additional European transport capacities to Austria in the amount of 40 TWh have been secured, according to OMV. This corresponds to half of Austria’s annual requirement and covers all of OMV’s delivery obligations in Austria. The group does not want to give any information about the costs.
OMV has secured the delivery option after an auction process lasting several weeks. This is intended to bring self-produced gas from Norway and purchased liquid gas to Austria if necessary. The take-over points for the natural gas are the nodes Oberkappel in Upper Austria (pipeline from Germany) and Arnoldstein in Carinthia (pipeline from Italy). In Norway, OMV also has its own large gas production facility.
OMV changes gas strategy
Österreichische Mineralölverwaltung Aktiengesellschaft has now secured additional pipelines to bring additional gas to Austria. It remains unclear whether, despite the additional capacities, all the gas will be delivered exclusively to Austria.
“This is an important milestone in the diversification of the natural gas supply. This means that we can bring the gas we produce in Norway ourselves, but also the LNG quantities we have purchased, to Austria if necessary and reliably supply our customers,” said OMV boss Alfred Stern on Thursday.
“OMV storage 80 percent full”
There has also been significant progress in gas storage. “Since we started storing natural gas very early in March and have consistently done so in the past few months, OMV’s own storage facilities are already 80 percent full,” says Alfred Stern. According to the company, the total possible gas storage volume of OMV is 25 terawatt hours.
Last year, Austria purchased around 60 TWh of natural gas from Russia. The Russian state-owned company Gazprom has recently drastically reduced the supply of Russian gases. Gazprom cited the scheduled maintenance of the Baltic Sea pipeline “Nord Stream 1” as the reason. But there is concern that Russia will not fully resume gas supplies even after maintenance is expected to end on July 21.
government satisfied
Finance Minister Magnus Brunner (ÖVP) welcomes this securing of additional gas transport capacities “as a small step at the right time”. “As the federal government, we have been doing everything we can together with the responsible companies for months to increase the security of gas supply and reduce dependence on Russia.” This is also supported by the Gas Diversification Act, which aims to promote alternative gas sources through the federal government.
For Federal Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP), Austria has come closer to two specific goals with the new pipeline capacities: securing gas supplies and becoming less dependent on Russian gas supplies. Climate Protection Minister Leonore Gewessler (Greens) also emphasized the move to diversify the gas supply. “This will enable us to massively reduce our dependency on Russia from October,” the minister said in a statement. “Should there be a delivery failure from Russia, we now have a large buffer.”
experts cautious
One should not rest on the OMV deal, but industry experts warn, because the gas volume is only enough for half of the demand and the stored gas also only belongs to a small part of Austria. “There is not enough gas for everyone for next winter,” said former E-Control board member Walter Boltz to ZIB2.
The gas is not yet in the country. OMV also left open whether the additional gas volumes will come to Austria at all. That will depend on supply and demand. And an insider warns the daily newspaper “Presse” that even full storage facilities in Austria would do little if gas ran out in other parts of Europe. “As a landlocked country, we need a European solution. That means we’ll have to split the amounts,” the insider said. Austria has already concluded such a solidarity pact with Germany.
The EU Commission is urging haste
On Thursday, the EU Commission encouraged the 27 EU member states to reduce gas demand through a bundle of measures and thus significantly reduce the risk of a gas shortage in winter. “If we act now, the impact of a sudden supply disruption could be reduced by a third,” says the first draft of a gas emergency plan. The EU Commission will officially present this on July 20th.
Among other things, it is proposed that public buildings should no longer be heated as much. The Commission proposes an upper limit of 19 degrees. It also follows the ideas of the German government to give companies incentives to forego gas consumption – for example through auctions. However, companies should also be able to receive national support when switching to other energy sources.
EU governments should also decide the order in which they would force the industry to shut down in the event of a supply shortage, the draft said. WIRD reiterates that households are “protected customers” under EU law. This means they would be the last to be affected by gas rationing.
Gewessler: “Reasonable”
Gewessler considers the EU Commission’s proposals to be reasonable: “We have an enormous challenge ahead of us – and we can only overcome it if we all make a contribution. We will have to reduce electricity and gas consumption wherever possible. The less gas we use, the greater our security cushion.” According to Gewessler, the EU energy ministers will meet on July 26 for a special meeting in Brussels. The finished plan will be presented there.