EU Agrees To Curb Gas Usage  

European Union members have agreed to cut gas use in case Russia halts supplies but some countries will have exemptions to avoid rationing.

Report says that the EU members have been locked in talks since the idea was suggested last week, have now agreed to voluntarily reduce 15% of gas use between August and March.

However, the deal was watered down after previously not having exemptions.

The EU has said its aim from the deal is to make savings and store gas ahead of winter, warning that Russia is “continuously using energy supplies as a weapon.”

The voluntary agreement would become mandatory if supplies reach crisis levels.

Exemptions
However, some countries not connected to the EU’s gas pipelines, such as Ireland, Malta, and Cyprus, would be exempt from any mandatory gas reduction order as they would not be able to source alternative supplies.

Elsewhere the Baltic nations, which are not hooked up to the European electricity system and are heavily reliant on gas for electricity production are also exempt from compulsory targets in order to avoid the risk of an electricity supply crisis.

The commission also said that countries can also ask to be exempt if they exceed gas storage filling targets, if they are heavily dependent on gas for ‘critical’ industries, or if their gas consumption has increased by at least 8% in the past year compared to the average of the past five years.

An oil and gas analyst for Investec, Nathan Piper said there is a “high political and economic price” as the EU looks to reduce its dependence on Russian gas and that price was being reflected in the exemptions for members, which would likely reduce the impact of the measures.

While the European Commissioner for Energy, Kadri Simson said initial calculations indicated that even if all exemptions to ration were used, the EU as a whole would still reduce demand to a level “that would help us safely through an average winter.”

She also outlined work to boost alternative gas supplies from countries including Azerbaijan, the United States, Canada, Norway, Egypt, and Israel.

Ahead of the deal announcement, Germany’s Economy Minister Robert Habeck said: “Of course, there are a lot of compromises in this text now. This is how Europe works.”

Mr. Habeck said a “problem might occur” that all the exemptions cause “too much bureaucracy so that we are too slow in times of crisis,” but he added the exemptions were “reasonable.”

Hungary was the only member to oppose the deal.

BBC/CO