Verbundnetz Gas AG (VNG), the eastern Germany gas distribution company in which Ruhrgas AG is now a major shareholder, has taken the first step toward sorting out its long term gas supply situation.
The company, which depends on the U.S.S.R. for all its imports, has signed a contract with the Soviet Union's Sojuzgazexport for supplies from Yamburg field. Deliveries under this contract are expected to total about 145 MMcfd this year and grow substantially.
Under the old East German Communist regime, VNG took supplies from Yamburg under a government to government treaty. Following reunification of East and West Germany, the German government asked VNG Chairman Klaus-Ewald Holst to renegotiate those supplies under a commercial contract.
VNG still has to renegotiate a contract for larger volumes of gas-as much as 570 MMcfd-with the U.S.S.R.'s Gasprom, which is seeking substantially higher prices for supplies from Orenburg field.
At a conference in Oslo, Burckhard Bergmann, a member of the Ruhrgas executive board, said the price demanded for this Soviet gas on the eastern German border is 20-25% higher than the prices at which Soviet gas is imported into other western European countries.
He said the demand is unrealistic because eastern Germany cannot bear much higher prices than the rest of Europe.
And he added the strategy of a broad based penetration of natural gas into eastern Germany's economy would be jeopardized if consumers were faced with prices not oriented to the market.
Oil products could emerge as the winner of a conflict over gas prices, he warned.
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