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FRANKFURT — Germany can wean itself off Russian gas within the next three years, the CEO of the country’s largest power producer, RWE, told a weekly paper.
“If we expand quickly, we can make it by spring 2025. The supply problems might be somewhat manageable a year earlier,” Markus Krebber told Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
He said apart from building infrastructure to import liquefied natural gas, this also required building new transport pipelines across European countries.
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German Economy Minister Robert Habeck has previously said the country could manage without Russian gas supplies by as soon as mid-2024.
RWE’s commodity exposure to Russia includes 15 terawatt hours (TWh) of gas deliveries by 2023, which it has reduced to 4 TWh since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine – action Moscow calls a “special military operation.”
Asked about future Russian gas supplies, which are subject to a new payment mechanism that has led to concerns about disruptions, Krebber said: “I expect a further shortage of gas supplies and not that someone will turn off the gas tap completely.” (Reporting by Christoph Steitz Editing by Mark Potter)