German Economics Minister Michael Glos is considering the creation of a national gas reserve in a bid to guarantee supply security in times when supply might be disrupted, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported him as saying.
In an advanced released report of Friday's edition, Glos said "the conflict in Georgia shows that we must not make ourselves even more unilaterally dependent regarding gas."
An economics ministry paper criticizes the fact that despite the country's high dependence on gas imports there is no national system similar to the oil reserve system as a precaution, it says. Since the previous oil crisis in the 1970s, Germany has national oil reserves that secure supply for 90 days, the paper says.
The newspaper cited Germany's foreign trade association for mineral oil and energy, or AFME, as saying a national gas reserve would cost up to EUR2 billion annually, without elaborating.