BONN (dpa-AFX) - Strongly increased gas imports from Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium have almost compensated for the loss of Russian gas supplies in net gas imports since the end of August 2022. This emerges from an internal paper of the Federal Network Agency, which is available to the Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. According to the paper, Germany imported an average of 77.0 terawatt hours of natural gas per month from 2017 to the end of February 2022, minus exports, which was used to cover national consumption as well as to fill storage facilities.

In contrast, net imports from September 2022 to the end of January - i.e., excluding Russian gas deliveries - were 72.7 terawatt hours per month. In addition, there were around 4 terawatt hours of liquefied natural gas from the new LNG terminals on the German coasts in January. To classify the volumes: According to the Federal Network Agency, Germany consumed about 1000 terawatt hours of natural gas in 2021.

According to the paper, an average of 26 terawatt hours of natural gas per month flowed to Germany from Norway from 2017 to the end of February 2022. After Russian supplies ceased, this volume was 41 terawatt-hours. Net imports from the Netherlands increased from 2 to 25 terawatt-hours. With Belgium, pre-war gas flows averaged a balanced monthly volume of around 2 terawatt-hours in both directions. Since September, about 23 terawatt-hours of natural gas have flowed in only one direction each month: from Belgium to Germany.

The data also show that significantly less natural gas than before has been forwarded from Germany to other countries since September. There were significant declines in gas flows with Switzerland, for example, where imports exceeded exports to Switzerland from September to January.

The Federal Network Agency continues to rate gas supplies in Germany as "stable." "Security of supply is guaranteed," was the latest statement in the agency's daily gas situation report. The authority is not giving the all-clear: preparing for the winter of 2023/2024 is a key challenge. Economical gas consumption therefore remains important./tob/DP/mis