German 2024 Gas Consumption up 3.3%, Industry Group Says

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – German utility industry group BDEW on Wednesday reported annual national usage of natural gas rose 3.3% in 2024 to 835 billion kilowatt hours (kWh).

The figure is watched in the context of Germany’s growing reliance on gas imports via intra-European pipelines other than from Russia, which were halted in the Ukraine war, and on liquefied natural gas (LNG) from overseas.

Europe’s biggest economy imported 1% less gas than in the previous year, with net receipts, cleared of transit for import and export, amounting to 771 billion kWh.

Germany possesses the biggest underground storage capacity for gas in the European Union and was able to meet its demand with stocks and from small domestic fields.

The bulk of gas arriving via pipelines came from Norway, which held a share of 45.1% of national consumption, BDEW figures showed.

Some 9% of the consumption total was received at new landing terminals for liquefied and supercooled natural gas (LNG), which were built up inside Germany in the energy crisis, the BDEW data also showed.

Germany also receives pipeline gas from many other origins via import destinations elsewhere in Europe, and LNG via other EU landing terminals, where the LNG is regasified and fed into trans-European pipeline grids.

Within the LNG share, a big reliance on United States origins was manifest: 91% of the total volume was from the U.S.

Separately, in preliminary power statistics, BDEW said that gross electricity production was 488.5 billion kWh in 2024, down 2.4% year-on-year, of which 58.1% came from renewable sources.

(Reporting by Vera Eckert, editing by Rachel More and Tomasz Janowski)