German Energy Reprieve Too Little, Too Late to Save Factory Jobs

Some of you may recall the discussion about weakening Germany and how sanctioning Russia is destroying Germany? While empowering Poland.

Keeping Germany down has always been a US led NATO goal.. Always.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-04/german-energy-reprieve-too-little-too-late-to-save-factory-jobs?srnd=premium-europe&leadSource=uverify%20wall

Via archive.ph

With gas prices down from record highs, Germany has seen a surge of optimism that the worst of the energy crisis has passed. But for the country’s biggest industrial producers, the long-term picture remains dismal.

Companies including BASF SE, Dow Inc. and Lanxess AG are poised to cut thousands of jobs and shift investment out of Germany because they don’t expect Berlin to reliably provide the energy they need at prices close to those they once paid for Russian pipeline gas.

“We are no longer competitive in Germany,” Lanxess Chief Executive Officer Matthias Zachert said at a recent conference organized by Die Welt newspaper. The Cologne-based chemical maker plans to maintain its production sites in North Rhine-Westphalia, “but our investments to grow further will go to more competitive locations like the US.”

But Germany hasn’t received direct Russian gas imports since September — a dramatic shift considering Moscow accounted for more than half of German gas imports before the invasion of Ukraine. With virtually no prospect of those imports resuming, the outlook for German chemical, glass and building-material companies, where gas and electricity can account for a third of costs, remains bleak. 

Even after recent declines, German energy prices remain substantially higher than in rival manufacturing zones in the US and Asia. 

The German chemical and pharmaceutical industry employs around 466,500 people and has an annual turnover in excess of €200 billion, according to Germany’s economics ministry. It’s an integral part of the automotive and other supply chains.