Press manufacturer Koenig & Bauer has decided to up its ante in the wake of an impending fuel shortage in Europe caused by a disruption of gas supply from Russia.
Russia is the major supplier of energy to most of the European countries including Germany. With things slowly getting serious as the harsh winter months are just around the corner, Germany has activated the second phase of its three-stage emergency plan for natural gas supplies, saying Europe’s biggest economy faces a “crisis”. The government said the decision to raise the level to “alarm” follows the cuts to gas supply and spiraling energy prices exacerbated by the war in Ukraine.
Russian state-run energy giant Gazprom announced that it was not sure whether the gas supply from Moscow will still be secure owing to the annual maintenance work on its Nord Stream 1 natural gas pipeline, scheduled to continue until at least July 21. As of now only about 40% of the usual volume of gas has been delivered to Germany which is heavily dependent on Russian gas as a source of energy, especially its industry and private households. In a statement, Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action Robert Habeck says, “The situation is serious and winter will come.” Klaus Müller, President of the Federal Network Agency, the government regulatory office, warned private customers to be prepared for gas costs to triple.
In this scenario, German major Koenig & Bauer has been working intensively in recent months to become independent of pipeline gas, with the process gas previously required for production to be fully substituted by the end of July. The company also plans to modify the fuel supply for heating energy at all major production sites by September 1, 2022.
Pipeline gas will be replaced by an energy mix of district heating, fuel oil, and LPG, among others, before the start of the heating season. LPG is sourced from crude oil, propane, and butane produced in the North Sea and refined in Europe. However as Koenig & Bauer is part of a complex supply chain, the extent to which the stoppage of gas would affect suppliers is beyond the company’s control, says an inside source.
In order to counter unforeseen power fluctuations, Koenig & Bauer has procured high capacity mobile emergency power units (NEA) which can be deployed as required, thereby largely securing its own production in all its European plants even in case of a total gas supply stoppage by Russia. According to a company spokesperson, irrespective of the current situation, Koenig & Bauer is already working on alternative energy concepts to ensure a supply that is largely independent of natural gas and increasingly self-sufficient in the short and medium term requirements.
With the concept of sustainable energy high on the company’s agenda, the overriding goal is to achieve self sufficiency and independence from fossil fuels, particularly with regard to achieving the sustainability targets set by the management itself, and for maximum resilience to future fluctuations in the energy market.
