The natural gas storage facilities in Europe are emptying.

In Germany, the filling level is still just over 40 percent, but this is much lower than in previous years at this time of year.

How long this lasts depends on the temperature development and further deliveries.

But given the Ukraine conflict, low natural gas supplies raise the question of how dependent Germany is on Russian natural gas.

The energy supply hardly seems to be prepared for the fact that a main supplier could fail.

Helmut Buender

Business correspondent in Düsseldorf.

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Henrik Kafsack

Business correspondent in Brussels.

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Jan Hauser

Editor in Business.

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Catherine Wagner

Business correspondent for Russia and the CIS based in Moscow.

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This is also the concern of Markus Krebber, the CEO of the energy supplier RWE.

In order for Germany to be better positioned in the future, he is in favor of a state gas reserve.

"This can go in the direction of state stockpiling, as with oil," Krebber said in an interview with the FAZ.

Another possibility is a legal requirement that is already common in other countries, “that gas suppliers have to secure certain parts of their delivery obligations through long-term purchase contracts or storage”.

If the conflict over Ukraine escalates further, even higher prices can definitely be expected.

According to Krebber, a complete failure of Russian deliveries could only be bridged for a very short time.

Maybe a few weeks".

Depends on the natural gas

Two weeks ago, the natural gas storage facilities in Europe were still about half full.

Since then the stock has been declining.

On February 23, the storage facilities in Germany were 41 percent full.

In previous years it was 51 percent, 89 percent and 66 percent on this day.

The situation is similar for Europe: In the EU, the storage capacity on February 23 was 42 percent.

In previous years it was 57 percent, 76 percent and 57 percent.

The RWE boss said that the security of the German power supply after the nuclear and coal phase-out depends on natural gas: If wind and sun do not supply enough electricity, "we will not have any other energy source than gas for a number of years." Broaden Germany's gas supply and improve access to liquefied natural gas (LNG) with its own import port. "We are dependent on terminals in Belgium, Holland or Poland, but the capacities are not sufficient". Political support is required because import ports will also be needed in the future for the import of green energies such as hydrogen or ammonia. Germany will remain an energy import country and will need its own import infrastructure for this.

Half of the households in this country heat with natural gas.

Many industrial companies are also dependent on natural gas.

A failure of deliveries would have consequences here.

The European Commission has been preparing for emergencies at full speed for several months.

At the EU-US Energy Council in early February, Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson and EU Foreign Policy Representative Josep Borrell are also to discuss with the Americans how possible bottlenecks can be offset by supplying liquid gas from the US and other countries.

The EU gets 40 percent of its gas from Russia.

Nonetheless, no one in the Commission is currently expecting Russia to cut off the EU's gas supply completely - even if some commissioners from Eastern Europe are more skeptical about the situation than others, as it is said in Brussels.

Ultimately, Russian President Vladimir Putin would shy away from such a step because it would inevitably mean the end of Nord Stream 2.

However, Europe has often sensed that Russia is willing to reduce gas supplies to the EU in order to emphasize its goals.

In this respect, the current situation is a déjà vu: conflicts between Russia and Ukraine have repeatedly threatened the gas supply of the EU.

As early as winter 2009, the interruption of Russian gas supplies to Ukraine also led to bottlenecks in the EU.

People were freezing then.