After Uniper, the federal government is also nationalizing the gas importer Sefe, formerly Gazprom Germania.
The Federal Ministry of Economics announced on Monday in Berlin that the federal government would finally force Russia out of the company and would take over 100 percent of the shares itself.
The company has been under the trusteeship of the Federal Network Agency in Bonn since April.
"The reason for this is the over-indebtedness of Sefe's commercial balance sheet and the resulting threat of insolvency, which would jeopardize the security of supply in Germany," the ministry justified the step, which was last expected.
"In order to avert this danger and to maintain Sefe's operational business, the change of ownership is now being carried out and the company stabilized." A corresponding order was published in the Federal Gazette at the beginning of the week.
The critical situation is due to a lack of gas supplies from Russia.
That's why importers currently have to buy replacements at short notice for a lot of money in order to be able to continue supplying their customers.
This led to billions in losses at Sefe.
The federal government also emphasized that banks and business partners had recently shied away from doing business with the company.
Specifically, the federal government ordered a capital cut, which means that the previous share capital is set to zero.
As a result, the Russian state-owned company Gazprom loses its deposits.
“The capital cut is associated with compensation.
The amount of the compensation is based on the market value of the Sefe shares,” the ministry said.
"The compensation procedure is not yet complete." At the same time, a capital increase with a volume of 225.6 million euros is already being carried out, which the federal government is doing alone and which makes it 100 percent owner.
The EU Commission had already given the green light for the fresh capital at the weekend.
Sefe - an abbreviation for "Securing Energy for Europe" - had already received loans of 11.8 billion euros from the KfW development bank in the spring.
According to the federal government, this loan will now be increased to EUR 13.8 billion.
A large part of this will then be converted into equity, which the EU Commission still has to approve.
The new funds for the Sefe rescue would come from the federal government's €200 billion defense shield, which is intended to mitigate the consequences of the energy crisis.