Politics & Regulation

"We are convinced it's better to produce gas in the North Sea than buying it from Vladimir Putin," Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen of Denmark said yesterday.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi is set to visit Algeria and sign an agreement to step up gas imports in an effort to end country’s dependence on Russian gas, sources close to the deal said.

Germany is taking concrete steps to end its dependency on Russian energy:  Imports of oil and coal from Russia will come to an end during the course of 2022.  Stopping the flow of natural gas to Germany will not happen as quickly, but Chancellor Olaf Scholz assures us it will be "very soon."

The urge for Europe to diversify away from Russian energy supplies amid the Russia-Ukraine crisis has revived talks about the EastMed gas pipeline, which carries gas from Eastern Mediterranean to South-East Europe and Greece.

The European Commission, however, insists on the need for the project to prove its commercial viability before approving it.

Italian Prime Minister, Mario Draghi, announced on Thursday, March 31, 2022, that he had discussed plans to construct a gas pipeline from Italy to Spain with the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, in a bit to help Europe is shifting from Russian gas dependency.

Draghi said that they discussed the idea of the Italy-Spain pipeline both in Rome and at the European Council.

Federal energy regulators on Thursday March 24, 2022 rolled back plans to consider conducting an assessment to determine how natural gas projects affect climate change, citing pushback from lawmakers and the industry leaders.

The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) today declared the early warning stage of the Gas Emergency Plan as a precautionary measure. A reliable supply continues to be guaranteed, Federal Minister for Economic Affiars and Climate Acrion Robert Habeck emphasized.

As war continues to rage in the Ukraine, Naftogaz, the state energy company responsible for operating the country's network of 38,550-km of gas pipelines, works around the clock to service 12 million households in the Ukraine as well as myriad customers in the European Union.

In the wake of the 2022 winter which saw the gas storage fill levels sink to historic lows, the German Bundestag met over the weekend to affirm that the gas storage operators are required to fill storage facilities up to 90 percent of capacity by 1 November of each year.  To this end the Bundestag passed a corresponding law.  

Germany's Economy and Climate Minister Robert Habeck visited Norway earlier this month to discuss how Germany and Norway could work together to develop a hydrogen pipeline link between the two countries.  

Is it possible to replace around half of natural gas imports from Russia with Biogas from Germany, and thereby dramatically reduce Germany's dependency on Russian energy?  

This is the question resonating around Germany and other European countries nowadays, as Vladimir Putin's Russia continues its War of Aggression on the Ukraine.  

Talks of the EastMed pipeline, a sub-sea pipeline in the Mediterranean that could carry gas from Israel to European customers, has been revived amid gas shortage and skyrocketing prices in Europe following Russia’s attack on Ukraine.

Operations of Norway-Poland gas pipeline construction through Denmark have resumed, and the project is expected to be ready for first shipments by November this year, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said in Tuesday’s press conference held in Oslo.

The European Union on Tuesday, March 8, 2020, unveiled new proposals that will enable the bloc to reduce its dependency on Russian gas by two-thirds this year and end it entirely by 2030, in the wake of the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Russia's military on Sunday, February 27, hit an oil depot in Kyiv, and one of the critical gas pipelines in Kharkiv in a massive explosion took over the usually quiet city south of Kyiv. The Ukrainian government urged its residents to hunker down in homes, subway stations, and underground garages to protect themselves from the smoke following the strike.