“For Austria, the alternatives are really limited,” said OMV boss Alfred Stern on Saturday in the Ö1 “Mittagsjournal” with a view to the coming winter.
80 percent of the natural gas used in Austria comes from Russia. The gas supply contracts have decades of tradition and were only extended to 2040 a year ago. “We’ve benefited from it for over 50 years – it’s the cheapest gas we can get,” Stern said. An exit from the contract is currently not being considered. OMV imports the gas from the Russian gas company Gazprom.
Important for security of supply
“This is of course an existing contract,” stated the OMV boss. “Something like this can be checked legally – but we are currently busy ensuring security of supply.” The supply contracts with Russia are “important for security of supply”. OMV doesn’t earn a lot of money with that either.
The Russia risk was underestimated overall: “We now had to write down the investments that we made there,” admitted Stern. For a Siberian gas field and the OMV loan for the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which has now been put on hold, “an impairment loss of EUR 1.5 to 1.8 billion has become necessary”. “You’re always smarter with hindsight. We underestimated the risk of Russia.” And that’s what happened to many in Europe.
EU wants to cut gas imports
The EU wants to reduce Russian gas imports by two-thirds within a year, and by 2027 it wants to get by completely without Russian oil and gas. “I’m not aware of the specific plans – the quantities coming from Russia to Europe are not that easy to replace,” Stern said. According to earlier information, the Commission intends to present concrete proposals for implementing this plan by the end of May. There should already be concrete specifications for gas storage facilities by the end of March.
Diversification also makes “massive investments necessary”, for example in gas terminals. It is worth considering to what extent this still pays off. In general, there is the possibility of importing liquid gas – for example from the USA – “or using coal, oil or even nuclear power for a longer period of time”, the OMV boss mentioned as possible alternatives to natural gas.
There are no short-term alternatives
“Austria has no direct access to liquid gas terminals,” Stern pointed out. “There are currently only limited possibilities to bring liquid gas to Austria.” Alternatives “to turn around the flow of gas here” are to be seen in the medium and long term, not in the short term.
Stern continues to see energy prices at a high level: “The pressure on the gas market will continue to be very high, also because of the tense situation.” Various announcements “repeatedly led to rashes”. With regard to the high fuel prices, he emphasized: “It’s not just oil that makes the price.” Fuel costs consist of raw material costs, processing costs in the refinery and taxes. He is “confident” about the price review by the Competition Commission, which has now been turned on by politicians and is an advisory body to the Federal Competition Authority (BWB). “It will come out that the current cost explosion is driving prices.”
“The managers of OMV and above all the state owner representatives have deliberately adopted a completely wrong strategy in recent years, they have brought us this extremely high dependence on Russian gas and the billions in write-offs,” said NEOS energy spokeswoman Karin Doppelbauer on Saturday in a broadcast.
Source: Nachrichten
