On Friday, the German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) announced that its country took control of a major refinery owned by Russian oil company Rosneft.
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Rosneft Deutschland and RN Refining & Marketing, two German subsidiaries of the Russian company, have been placed under the trusteeship of the Federal Network Agency. The Agency will now take over the PCK refinery in Schwedt, by far the biggest fuel supplier of the country's capital Berlin.
So far, the PCK refinery has been supplied with Russian oil via the Druzhba pipeline. However, due to the EU import ban on Russian oil next year, eastern German ports and a pipeline from Rostock to Schwedt are to be upgraded to create new transport routes for oil. In addition, Germany has approached Poland to discuss potential supply routes.
With around 12 percent of Germany's oil processing capacity, Rosneft Deutschland is one of the country's largest companies in this sector. The trusteeship is initially limited to six months. Gazprom's German subsidiary has been placed under the trusteeship of the Federal Network Agency at the beginning of April.
During the 2022 Armed Forces Conference held on Friday, Chancellor Olaf Scholz noted that Germany will have enough energy by the end of 2023, even if Russian gas supplies stop completely in the short term.
"By the end of next year we will have created so many import infrastructures that we will be able to safely guarantee our country's supply," he said, adding that preventive policies taken in time have allowed Germany to have its gas storage deposits at 88 percent of capacity and "will soon be at 90 percent."
Scholz also recalled that Germany has the possibility of resorting to coal and nuclear power plants. The "only problem" that still exists is energy prices, he acknowledged.