and it was unclear on Friday what consequences, if any, the sale would have for energy deliveries to Germany, which draws around 55 per cent of its gas from Russia.A subsidiary of Gazprom Germania, Astora GmbH, controls many of the country’s largest gas storage facilities. One facility in Rehden, near the Dutch border, accounts for one fifth of Germany’s total gas storage capacity.
Bought from BASF seven years ago, the storage facility is as big as 910 soccer fields and, at full capacity, can deliver enough gas to supply two million households for a year. Of late the Russian-owned facility’s capacity use as low as four per cent. The sale will not affect other Gazprom subsidiaries in western Europe, including a separate Swiss-based consortium that has a controlling stake in the two Nord Stream pipelines beneath the Baltic Sea.
As tensions built with Moscow over its energy bills, Germany’s economics ministry triggered the first of a three-stage energy emergency plan this week and warned that Berlin would resist Russian attempts to “blackmail” Europe.