Gas covered a little less than a quarter of Germany’s primary energy use in 2023, making it the country’s second most important energy source. Germany is among the world’s biggest natural gas importers – around 95 percent of its gas consumption is met by imports, according to the BGR. In 2022, the country produced 4.8 bcm of natural gas, but according to geologists, the fields are nearing depletion. Domestic natural gas production has been falling since 2004 and will likely cease altogether in the course of the 2020s.
While Russia’s war against Ukraine has reignited the debate about the possibility of unconventional fracking in Germany, legal restrictions, opposition by the population and the current government, and the goal of climate neutrality by 2045 make its use very unlikely.
Germany imported 3,524 petajoules (PJ) of natural gas in 2022, according to the Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control (BAFA). The halt of pipeline deliveries from Russia in September that year caused this massive decrease from the 5,000 PJ imported in 2021.
The share of imports by country remained unclear for several years. Due to data privacy regulations, BAFA stopped publishing import volumes by country in 2016. However, the economy and climate ministry said in 2022 that before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, 55 percent of gas imports came from Russia, 30 percent from Norway and 13 percent from the Netherlands.
Germany stopped receiving pipeline gas from Russia in late August 2022. While there is no EU embargo on natural gas, the government said shortly after the start of the war that it intended to reduce the share from Russia significantly over the course of two years. However, Russia itself reduced supplies step-by-step and halted them completely in the summer of 2022, shortly before explosions destroyed the Nord Stream pipelines – the only direct gas links between Germany and Russia. [Also read the factsheet Gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 links Germany to Russia, but splits Europe.]
While there had been wide-spread worries of a severe gas shortage, especially in the winters of 2022/2023 and 2023/2024, it did not materialise, thanks to milder temperatures (less need to heat homes) and the government's costly efforts to secure alternative supplies.
Energy industry association BDEW data show that over the course of 2023 Norway was the main supplier of natural gas to Germany with a monthly share of around 35 percent, followed by the Netherlands with about 30 percent. Germany is also supplied via LNG terminals in neighbouring countries, where the fuel is regasified and fed into the natural gas pipeline infrastructure. BDEW said that in some cases it is difficult to attribute the origin of the gas that crosses the borders into Germany. For example, pipelines from Austria or Switzerland can contain Russian natural gas (via Ukraine) as well as Algerian natural gas or LNG from Italian LNG terminals. "Therefore, plausible estimates and assumptions must be used to calculate the origin mix," BDEW said.
A 2024 Reuters analysis said that ports in Spain, France and Belgium continue to receive LNG shipments from Russia, and this sometimes included transhipments, when LNG switches ships in an EU port before sailing on. In 2023, Germany imported 48.6 percent of its gas via pipeline from Belgium, France and the Netherlands. Reuters said that as much as 13.7 percent of gas in the German grid could be Russian, in a scenario where those countries passed on as much Russian LNG as possible. The reality is probably less when accounting for national consumption and supply mixes, said the news agency. "Physically, it is conceivable that Russian gas molecules could come to Germany," a spokesperson from the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) said. "We do not know whether German importers buy Russian LNG quantities directly. It would not be prohibited," the spokesperson added.
Environmental NGO Urgewald has also criticised that Russian LNG continues to arrive in the Netherlands and Belgium, parts of which also make their way to Germany.
