- Deutsche Energy Terminal has been told to reject Russian LNG, according to The Financial Times.
- It comes as the EU considers buying more liquefied natural gas from the US.
Germany is believed to have told its ports to reject Russian cargoes of liquefied natural gas in a bid to further isolate Vladimir Putin’s energy industry.
The country’s economic ministry told the state-owned Deutsche Energy Terminal not to accept deliveries of Russian LNG, according to a letter dated November 6 obtained by the Financial Times.
The letter was sent after the company was due to receive a Russian cargo shipment on Sunday at its import facility in Brunsbüttel, the FT said.
It went on to say that the decision would protect Germany’s “overriding public interests.”
The letter added that accepting the deliveries would defy the reason the German terminal was initially opened — to allow Germany and the EU to become “independent of Russian gas.”
It comes as the EU weighs up buying more LNG from the US when President-elect Donald Trump takes office in a bid to convince him not to impose high import tariffs on EU companies.
Trump pledged on the campaign trail to impose a fresh era of trade tariffs. He has vowed to impose a 60% tariff on goods imported from China and a 10% blanket tariff on all other goods entering the US.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said last week that she would consider replacing Russian LNG with more US imports as part of trade talks.
“We still get a lot of LNG from Russia, and why not replace it with American LNG, which is cheaper for us and brings down our energy prices,” von der Leyen told reporters on Friday.
“It’s something where we can get into a discussion,” she said, referring to the US’s trade deficit with the eurozone, which reached $131.3 billion in 2022.
“It would be in the interest of the US that Europe continues to shun Russian fossil fuels, given the US oil and gas industry has been one of the key beneficiaries of this move,” wrote Warren Patterson, the head of commodities strategy at ING, last week.
The EU — which previously relied on Russian energy — banned seaborne Russian crude imports and refined petroleum products following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
As BI previously reported, it has also cut most of its piped natural gas imports from Russia, replacing much of it with LNG from the US. The US is now a top exporter of gas to Europe, accounting for 46% of the bloc’s supply in 2023.
Germany hasn’t imported LNG directly from Russia since the invasion.
However, according to a Kpler report obtained by FT, the country’s state energy group, Sefe, has a long-term contract to import Russian LNG via France.
In a statement to Business Insider, a spokesperson for Germany’s economic ministry said it wouldn’t comment on “possible leaked documents.”
“It is correct that Germany does not import Russian gas and it is also clear to the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action that this must not happen via German LNG terminals,” the spokesperson added.
Deutsche Energy Terminal and Sefe did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.
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