Germany looks for liquefied gas suppliers and turns to Vaca Muerta

"Unemployment is 3% at 4%, industries do not find staff to take and employees have good wages, which always exceed l & # 39; inflation annual, close to 2% there are two years ".

Although it would be an ideal scenario for a president to present these figures to Congress, it does not happen in Argentina, but in Germany. The sentence belongs to Stefan Kapferer, director of the executive board of the Federal Association of Energy and Water Management (BDEW) of Germany, a chamber of 1,800 energy companies in the country.

In dialogue with The chronicler in Berlin, Kapferer said that Germany plans to build two regasification plants to import liquefied natural gas (LNG).

SummerScuchará In the coming years offers from several countries who can supply the fluid, among them Argentina, for the gas that it can produce in Dead cow.

"What finally the matter is the price of gasoline at the wellhead", warned Kapferer, since Germany can badimilate the costs of transport and regasification.

In The race for LNG supply to Germany is registered in the United States, Russia and Qatar, but in the The next decade could be added in Argentina, once you build a plant to liquefy the gas (lower the temperature to 161 ° below zero to compress and transport it by boat).

The planting to export is a job that would cost nearly $ 5 billion It could also be financed by the state oil company YPF, in collaboration with other partners, to eliminate the surplus gas produced at Vaca Muerta.

By train to guarantee your energy security, Germany seeks to diversify its parent company go almost exclusively to renewable energies and, meanwhile, will use gas as "bridge" coal, which loses its place.

For that, wants to have multiple gas suppliers and not depend exclusively from Russia.

Currently, the 83 million The Germans consume approximately 90,000 million cubic meters (MMm3 / d), approximately 246 MMm3 / d, which is more than double theor that is consumed in summer in Argentina.

However, geopolitics plays its role. It's aYes, the Germans do not want to let anyone mark the court and dominate their energy policy.

US President Donald Trump is lobbying for Germany to build LNG regasification plants. "Germany must resist US pressure on energy policy"they hold in Berlin.

EThe decarbonisation plan of the German economy (from 38% currently at 0% of the matrix in 2040) to help mitigate the effects of climate change and its switch to renewable energy (which must represent at least 65% of the matrix in 2030 and is now at 38%) rtrajo has inflicted on Argentina an increase in energy costs.

According to sources admitted in this newspaper in Berlin, the switch to renewable energy, especially wind energy (Wind turbines grow in fields near the German capital), brought the average cost of electricity to 30 cents per kilowatt hour (KWh), about 0.35 USD / KWh or 350 USD per megawatt hour (/ MWh) what It means 4 or 5 times more expensive than in Argentina.

This represents a scenario to be followed in the country, since Argentina predicts that by 2025, 20% of the electricity matrix will depend on renewable energies..