Germany will completely stop buying Russian coal on Aug. 1 and Russian oil on Dec. 31, marking a major change in the country's sources of energy supply, the country's Deputy Finance Minister Jörg Kukis said at a conference in Sydney, Reuters reported.
"In a few weeks we will stop using Russian coal," he said.
The Russian Federation previously supplied Germany with 40 percent coal and 40 percent oil, he said.
"For anyone familiar with the history of the Druzhba oil pipeline, which was already a tool of the Soviet empire over Eastern Europe, getting rid of that dependence is not a trivial matter, but something we will achieve in a few months," Kukis said.
Germany is quickly developing LNG import terminal projects to help fill the gas supply gap, but he stressed that while the United States and Qatar together can deliver about 30 billion cubic meters of gas in the form of LNG to Europe, that still leaves a huge gap.
According to Kukis, a key challenge for the future will be filling the huge gap that will remain when the European Union gives up 158 billion cubic meters per year of gas supplied by Russia.
He said that while Germany is focused on the transition to zero emissions and has recently passed legislation to speed up the development of renewable energy projects, gas will be essential to that transition.
