About one third of Germany’s and one quarter of the EU’s oil imports originate from Russia. In 2021, the nation imported 24.2 million tonnes of crude oil and 5.1 million tonnes of oil merchandise with a complete worth of 12.3 billion euros, in accordance with the Federal Statistical Workplace (Destatis). Many of the imported oil is burned as petrol and diesel in transport, one other giant half is utilized in non-public oil heating programs.
Not like pure gasoline, the place substituting Russian imports is more durable for Germany and Europe (see above), changing Russian oil imports “will possible not pose a serious drawback,” a paper by power coverage researchers says. Nonetheless, oil costs will possible stay extremely risky, the researchers warn.
Enough shares of oil can be found on the world market, and the import routes will not be restricted by a pipeline community as they’re with gasoline. Solely eight p.c Europe’s whole oil provides come by way of Russian pipelines, which signifies that it’s attainable to acquire oil from different international locations at quick discover, an evaluation by NGO Transport&Setting finds. Germany already has a 90-day oil reserve in place.
Nonetheless, stopping the established Russian provides can have an inevitable impact on costs. World oil costs have doubled since 2021 and costs for diesel in Germany have already risen to unprecedented heights. In an effort to chop Germans’ power use, politicians have proposed to repeat the “car-free Sundays” of the 1973 oil disaster.
Greenpeace Germany has proposed 10 emergency measures that would rapidly cut back the usage of oil by ten to 12 p.c. These embody a common pace restrict, the accelerated set up of warmth pumps and the extension of the house workplace obligation.
The Federal Setting Company (UBA) has mentioned that decreasing the utmost pace on motorways to 100 km/h and to 80 km/h on different roads would save round 2.1 billion litres of fossil gas or 3.8 p.c of the gas consumed within the transport sector.
In the long run, the change to e-mobility and hydrogen in transport are to wean Germany off its thirst for imported oil merchandise.