Executives of Germany's gas and oil company Wintershall AG and Russian gas monopoly Gazprom OAO (GAZP.RS) Thursday called for an increased use of natural gas as fuel for power generation.
The power generation sector is the growth market of the future for natural gas, said Wintershall Chief Executive Rainer Seele at the Handelsblatt energy conference in Berlin.
The natural gas industry has a "very flexible interest" to do business with power plant operators, said Seele, who heads the fully owned upstream oil and gas unit of BASF SE (BAS.XE).
Natural gas is an ideal supplement for renewable energies, helping to meet peak demand, Seele added.
His comments were echoed by Gazprom Deputy Chief Executive Alexander Medvedev, who also said that natural gas could help Europe meet its ambitious climate protection and carbon dioxide reduction targets.
"Increasing the natural gas share in the European Energy mix by just 1% would reduce CO2 emissions by more than 3%," Medvedev said.
Over the past few years investors planning to build gas-fired power plants have often faced difficulties arranging long-term supply contracts with producers at attractive terms due to booming demand.
Due to the economic and financial crisis, however, consumption of gas has dropped sharply, resulting in supply considerably outstripping demand.
The supply situation has further been exacerbated by increased supply of unconventional sources like liquefied natural gas and shale gas.