Europe’s industry is currently still heavily dependent on Russian gas supplies. Since the start of the Ukraine war, alternative sources of supply have been sought and stores filled. “A gas supply stop by Russia or, conversely, a gas embargo by the EU would massively damage European industry,” emphasized CEO Herbert Eibensteiner. “Should this worst-case scenario occur, we could still maintain production in Austria for several months thanks to our own storage facilities and alternative gas sources.”
Austria covers around 80 percent of its gas requirements from Russian sources. In this country, households would be supplied before industry in an emergency – this is legally anchored in the Energy Control Act.
voestalpine can store gas itself
The recent amendment of the Energy Control Act in Austria now enables voestalpine to store gas itself, according to the group. As early as May 2022, voestalpine had “contractually secured its own gas storage facilities for the first time”. According to the information provided, the company will store up to 1.5 TWh of gas in the RAG storage facilities in Haag and Haidach, among others. This amount enables three months of full operation or a correspondingly longer partial operation. Currently, these storages are already half full. The full storage capacity should be reached by mid-July 2022.
voestalpine is working with both existing suppliers and new suppliers to diversify its gas supply sources. During the summer months, for example, gas deliveries from overseas would be transported to Austria via Italy (LNG terminals), which would be used for storage and ongoing operations.
In the event of a possible gas bottleneck, existing emergency plans would also come into force, in which production could be gradually adapted to the available energy quantities. Due to the international orientation of the group with 500 companies and locations worldwide – and thus numerous unaffected locations outside of Europe – it would be possible for voestalpine to “partially compensate” for production bottlenecks. Voest in Austria is not affected by the currently throttled gas deliveries from Russia via the Baltic Sea pipeline “Nord Stream 1”. The production sites here are “mainly supplied via the Transgas pipeline running through Slovakia”. The pipeline is fed with Russian gas.
Source: Nachrichten
