Germany Faces Gas Shortage Crisis: Industry Demands Strategic Reserve

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

Following the Federal Network Agency, the umbrella organization of the energy industry is now also calling for the establishment of a national strategic natural gas reserve. The coordinated push by the sector makes it clear that the decline in gas storage levels is far more severe than politics has so far admitted.

Kerstin Andreae, chairwoman of the German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW), called on Monday in an interview with the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland for the creation of a national strategic gas reserve. 

Andreae emphasized the need for a robust buffer to absorb external shocks in Germany’s energy supply. With this demand, the BDEW explicitly aligned itself with the position of the Federal Network Agency, whose president Klaus Müller had already advocated for such a strategic reserve in a dpa interview last week.

Similar signals are now coming from the business world. The Oldenburg-based energy supplier EWE also considers the time ripe to discuss additional crisis instruments and to follow the examples of other European countries. Austria, France, and Poland already maintain strategic gas reserves to safeguard against supply crises.

Reality Ignored

It is remarkable that Germany has largely ignored fundamental questions of energy market design and the security of grids with baseload energy for years—a consequence of ideologically driven decisions, for which then-Federal Minister for Economic Affairs Robert Habeck also bears political responsibility.

Current figures underline the urgency of the situation. Gas storage levels in Germany are currently dropping by around one percent per day due to the cold weather, with overall fill levels now at roughly 30 percent.

In extreme cases—such as conditions similar to the winter of 2010—a gas shortage is entirely conceivable. In such a scenario, daily consumption could no longer be covered by additional LNG imports and remaining gas stocks. The result would be planned shutdowns, initially in energy-intensive industries, with cascading and dramatic economic effects across large parts of the economy. 

Germany in 2026 stands amid the ruins of its irrational energy policy. It reads like a bad joke that the country which dismantled its nuclear power, removed cheap Russian gas at Brussels’ behest, and now aims to exit coal-fired power, is discussing national gas reserves—all in the name of a politically and media-amplified climate hysteria.

Assurances and Stubbornness

Publicly, politics and the Federal Network Agency are working to downplay the problem of declining gas storage levels. Shortly before his dpa interview, Federal Network Agency President Klaus Müller told the Rheinische Post that the risk of supply problems was generally low. Germany had created greater flexibility through multiple import channels—both pipelines and newly built LNG terminals. Moreover, wholesale market prices showed no sign of scarcity, even if they had recently risen, Müller said. 

It is a rare skill to contradict oneself multiple times in just a few sentences, as Müller managed in this interview.

In contrast, the lobby group INES spoke of historically low levels of German gas storage. Last year at this time, the fill level was around 58 percent, and the year before, even 76 percent. The difference is not marginal, but structural—highlighting the growing vulnerability of the country’s energy security.

The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs struck a similar tone. In January, it referred to the new import flexibility and recently saw no need for state intervention in the market—though one can hardly call the German energy network a “market” anymore, a fact perhaps still unnoticed in the ministry.

Energy economist Claudia Kemfert of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) also stated in January that there was no supply crisis and that imports remained stable. That now bad weather and cold snaps in North America threaten LNG deliveries from the main supplier, the USA—which is responsible for over 90 percent of Germany’s LNG supply—may be the irony of the weather gods. It changes nothing, however, about the fact that German energy policy is trapped between ideological blindness, general negligence, and an intellectual oversimplification of the core problem.

Germany now provides a textbook example of the consequences of centrally planned interventionist policy. Once set in motion, every further review of the increasingly distorted market design forces additional interventions and regulatory measures. The system is gradually transforming into a command economy. It is a downward spiral of supply that can only be broken if long-term measures enable the German energy sector to produce baseload-capable energy again.

This would include returning to Russian gas deliveries, reversing coal phase-out decisions, and adopting modern small modular nuclear reactors. These, by the way, do not produce traditional nuclear waste—an argument that immediately defuses reflexive objections from anti-nuclear opponents.

Worldwide, nuclear power is experiencing an impressive resurgence, particularly in the USA, China, and Russia. Only in Germany does ideological stubbornness prevent recognition of this reality.

Pressure must be applied to European policy to exploit substantial gas reserves, gaining geostrategic breathing space and at least partially freeing itself from the self-imposed stranglehold.

Irony of History

The emerging necessity of a national gas reserve carries two ironies. First, it is a belated admission of the complete failure of the energy transition. Renewable energies, due to their volatility and to maintain grid stability and supply security, require storage and reserve capacities that cannot be economically provided without massively burdening or partially collapsing the economy.

Second, it is precisely the declared arch-enemy of German policy, US President Donald Trump, who these days is calling not only for an existing strategic oil reserve but also for the creation of further national reserves. Washington intends to invest around twelve billion dollars to stockpile metals such as lithium, rare earths, nickel, and cobalt, thereby strategically reducing dependence on China and other raw material suppliers.

The terms “national” and “reserve” in the energy policy context are particularly offensive to the left-green milieu. There, people are unaccustomed to yielding to reality and recognizing that conservative thinking in matters of supply security, preparedness, and societal resilience is superior in every respect—including as a socio-political concept.

In the USA, supply security and strategic resilience sit prominently on the political agenda alongside energy market deregulation. In Germany, however, remarkable consistency is applied to stabilizing a green crony economy, whose economic viability is increasingly eroding.

German households will experience the consequences of this fatal error very concretely in their accounts over the coming weeks and months.

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About the author: Thomas Kolbe, a Germany a graduate economist, has worked for over 25 years as a journalist and media producer for clients from various industries and business associations. As a publicist, he focuses on economic processes and observes geopolitical events from the perspective of the capital markets. His publications follow a philosophy that focuses on the individual and their right to self-determination.