Chairman of Volkswagen Group Herbert Diess.
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- Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess says car plants could be at risk if the Russian energy supply is disrupted.
- The transition from Russian energy is not happening “fast enough” to account for a major disruption, he said.
- Germany is the European Union’s largest economy and is still heavily reliant on Russian gas.
Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess has said that Germany’s shift away from Russian energy is not happening fast enough to account for a major disruption of Russian gas.
He made the comments during an interview with Bloomberg’s Anna Edwards at the Qatar economic forum in Doha.
Diess said the German carmaker was concerned but preparing for the possibility of a disruption to Russian gas supply. He added that the company would keep the ability to power factories on coal for the time being.
The carmaker’s CEO said although the long-term plan was a move toward renewables, insecurity over Russian gas supply to Germany meant a short-term fallback to fossil fuels.
Although Germany has set a target to wean its economy off Russian gas by 2024, the country is still heavily reliant on Russian oil and gas. Russia supplied around 55% of Germany’s natural gas in 2021 and 40% in the first quarter of 2022, according to Reuters.
Diess said a lot of progress had been made towards this target, including buying liquid gas from other parts of the world, but it was “not fast enough” to cover the carmaker if there was a major disruption of gas.
Insecurity over Russian gas supplies is already affecting industrial production in Europe, some factories have been forced to close due to soaring costs and growing concerns Russia will shut off gas supplies.
Russian energy-giant Gazprom halted some natural-gas supplies to Germany earlier this month after Shell, which supplies fuel to Germany under a contract, refused to pay in rubles.
