Berlin — Gazprom Germania, the energy business abandoned by Russia’s Gazprom in April, may need a fresh injection of funds beyond a 10-billion-euro ($10.06 billion) loan already extended by German state investment bank KfW, Der Spiegel reported on Friday.
Germany’s energy regulator said in April that it would administer the company, a trading, storage and transmission business, in the interests of Germany and Europe.
Since then the loan from KfW has not only been intended to secure the liquidity of the group – now trading under the name SEFE Securing Energy for Europe – but also to allow it to replace defaulted Russian gas by buying it on the market.
However, government-appointed SEFE trustee Egbert Laege told news magazine Der Spiegel that gas purchase prices are “significantly higher today than we had set in our original calculation”.
Securing gas supply will therefore “probably cost more than we thought. We therefore have to see whether there is enough money or not,” he added.
Laege was confident the government would provide further credit if necessary. “Because the federal government wanted to stabilise SEFE in the long term with its credit, I believe that if more money were needed, it would also be made available,” he said.
Writing by Paul Carrel; Editing by Jan Harvey- Reuters
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