Germany starts receiving gas directly from France

French gas pipeline operator GRTgaz said on Thursday that Germany received its first direct deliveries of gas from France via a pipeline link, under an agreement aimed at helping the two countries deal with current energy supply problems.

France is less dependent on Russian imports from Germany because it gets most of its needs from Norway and through LNG shipments. The company said it would initially deliver the equivalent of 31 gigawatt-hours per day using a pipeline in the Moselle region.

The company said in a statement that the maximum capacity of the new gas connection is 100 gigawatts per hour per day.

Although new flows at full capacity represented less than 2% of Germany’s daily needs, direct supplies from France were eagerly awaited as Berlin sought alternative supplies and preserved its industries.

Under the deal struck by the eurozone’s two largest countries following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Germany also pledged to supply France, which is currently experiencing outages in nuclear reactors, with additional electricity if needed.

Terry Troff, president of GRTgaz, told reporters that he could not say when the daily limit of 100 gigawatt-hours would be reached.