France takes measures to increase natural gas storage before winter: Minister

By Shweta Desai

PARIS (AA) - France has taken “drastic measures” to increase its natural gas storage in a bid to deal with the possibility of a total cut-off of Russian gas, the country’s energy minister said on Wednesday.

“We have taken measures to increase our natural gas storage … by managing the supplies of liquefied natural gas from all parts of the world that are ready to provide us with a delivery from Norway,” Agnes Pannier-Runacher told BFM Business TV.

Nearly 17% of France’s gas supply comes from Russia.

GRTgaz, a gas transmission network, announced in mid-June that France no longer receives pipelined natural gas from Russia. In March, Paris held talks with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, to diversify its fuel and gas imports.

The additional supply needs to be supplemented with better control of energy consumption, the minister stressed.

To be able to benefit from gas throughout the winter period, Pannier-Runacher said, energy sobriety measures like setting the heating temperatures to 19 degrees which can lead to 7% savings in bills or carpooling will help save the fuel.