Austria’s Gas Hub Rethinks Strategy After Russian Transit Ends
(Reuters) — Austria's central gas hub traded less volume in January after transit for Russian flows through Ukraine stopped but the country sees new opportunities in intraregional trade, biogas and green hydrogen, its chief executive said.
The Central European Gas Hub (CEGH) has long seen its role as a trading place for all directions in and around Europe, regardless of origin, CEO Gottfried Steiner said in an interview at the E-World trade fair in Germany this week.
"In January, we had a 9% year-on-year decline in spot volume and a 14% decline in futures," he said. "Given the biggest change in our 20-year history this year, I have to say that it went surprisingly well."
Full figures for January will be released later this month.
Vienna-based CEGH was established in 2005 originally by utility OMV for trading of gas at nearby Baumgarten, where Russian gas arrived via Ukraine and through the Nord Stream pipeline under the Baltic Sea, as well as at huge Austrian storage caverns.
Ukraine, which was invaded by Moscow three years ago, on January 1 ended transit for Russian gas. Russia once supplied as much as a third of Europe's total requirements.
So-called reverse flows, changing direction from west-to-east, have been developed by traders since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and raised prices for Ukraine.
In 2024, CEGH recorded a turnover of just under 700 terawatt hours (TWh), equivalent to some 80% of neighboring Germany's annual gas usage, and a 22% increase over 2023.
Today, Norwegian and German supplies are as common in Austria as supplies from Italian liquefied natural gas (LNG) ports, or from north-western European LNG ports.
To harness opportunities in the post-gas age, CEGH says it is developing biomethane and platforms for hydrogen and related guarantee of origin certificates, that document wind- and solar-derived hydrogen's green power quality.
"Austria is predestined as a hydrogen hub," Steiner said, alluding to a gas import corridor from North Africa via Italy to Germany that could be repurposed for hydrogen.
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