“No one in politics has really addressed this issue,” says Walter Boltz, criticizing the fact that Austria has neglected to make itself less dependent on Russian gas in recent years. The longtime head of the energy agency E-Control says that politics could certainly have limited Russia’s dominance. As the owner of almost a third of OMV, the Republic did nothing. The result: Austria is 80 percent dependent on Russian gas, which is more dependent than a few other countries. The import of liquid gas could have been pushed earlier and the storage tanks filled better, said Boltz on ORF radio.
Austria could have implemented a gas storage concept long ago. This is now being discussed and is said to provide for an 80 percent filling of the storage tanks. “Here we are late,” says Boltz.
The storage tanks are currently about 20 percent full. This is less than in other countries, but Austria has a storage capacity of around eight billion cubic meters, which corresponds to around one year’s consumption, according to OMV.
Dramatic also for companies
Boltz does not expect the Russians to turn off the gas supply. However, the price will still increase. Households would have to expect gas bills to double to triple compared to 2019 costs. In the case of companies, however, the price situation is much more dramatic. Some plants with a high gas component could soon reduce their production if they can no longer pass the costs on to customers, says Boltz.
The fact is, however, that Russia supplied less gas last year.
Source: Nachrichten
