Steelmaker Voestalpine builds up gas reserve to tackle shortfalls

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A general view of the steel plant Donawitz of Austrian steelmaker Voestalpine in Leoben, Austria August 9, 2019. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner

ZURICH (Reuters) – Voestalpine has built up sufficient gas reserves to safeguard three months of production should there be an emergency hit to supplies, the Austrian steelmaker’s chief executive said in an article published on Saturday.

“We reached our goal this week and saved the entire amount,” Herbert Eibensteiner told Der Standard in an interview. “That’s 1.5 terawatt hours. In the event of a crisis, that should be enough for three months of full operation.”

Russia resumed pumping gas via its biggest pipeline to Europe on Thursday after a 10-day outage, allaying some of Europe’s immediate supply fears but not enough to end the threat of rationing to cope with potential winter shortages.

“We buy gas on an ongoing basis and, for business reasons, have decided to procure the requirement for three months,” Eibensteiner told the newspaper..

“In an emergency, this quantity gives us the time we need to process orders and shut down the directly affected production areas in a controlled manner.”