Can France do without Russian gas? “Eventually, yes” according to Engie boss

Short, medium or long? After considering at the end of March that France would need “medium or long term” of Russian gas, the president of Engie estimated that our country would be “probably capable of reducing very significantly” your addiction from here to three or four years.

“In the long term, yes. The question is in what term”said Jean-Pierre Clamadieu on May 7 at the microphone of France Inter. Its layout is supported by an entire network of infrastructures (gas pipelines, liquefaction facilities, etc.) of complex implementation.

“If we were to face a brutal outage, it’s a much more difficult scenario and it will require adjustments that will probably be brutal as well,” the energy chief added.

Russian gas accounts for 20% of Engie’s supplies

Especially since Russian gas still accounts for 20% of Engie’s supplies. It also announced on May 3 the purchase of 1.75 million tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) per year, resulting from a hydraulic fracturing process prohibited in France, from the US company NextDecade, from the future Texas Rio Grande terminal from from 2026 and for fifteen years.

“The current tensions in the energy markets have reinforced the relevance of our strategy of diversifying the sources of supply to fulfill our priority: to guarantee the security of supply to our clients,” argued a spokesperson for the energy company. The galery May 4

At the end of March a change of course began, since Engie had extended a contract with another US group, Cheniere Energy, to buy more LNG from it than planned, and this for twenty years. Therefore, the tricolor company does not intend to abandon the precious hydrocarbon in the short term, with these new contracts in force until 2040 and beyond.

Liquefied natural gas is the least polluting

And yet, the LNG, which must be liquefied and then regasified, and which transits by sea, turns out to be, to say the least, polluting. In detail, its footprint is 58 grams of CO2 per kilowatt hour (KWh) on average, compared to 23 gCO2/KWh of “conventional” gas transported by gas pipelines. Not to mention that the one produced on American soil goes through “hydraulic fracturing”, that is, deep drilling, mobilizing large amounts of water and chemical products to break the rocks.

A process prohibited in France since 2011, due to the risk of groundwater contamination but also of methane leaks, this greenhouse gas with a warming potential 80 times greater than CO2 on a twenty-year scale. Furthermore, it was this precise point that concentrated the criticism in 2020 and resulted in the resignation of the contract with NextDecade. But the situation has changed, Engie defends today.

” NextDecade has made significant progress by committing to reduce emissions at the Rio Grande terminal by 90%, notably through a CO2 capture and storage project “, assures a spokesman to The galery. The gas in question will be Responsibly Sourced Gas (RSG), sourced from major gas producers in the Permian Basins [le plus grand champ pétrolier des Etats-Unis, ndlr] and Eagle Ford “, with a “ control by an independent third party “, continues the group.

To get rid of Russian gas, Engie turns around and turns to US shale gas, despite climate emergency

A “sustainable energy transition” label with Bureau Veritas

At the same time, on May 5, the energy company released a “TED” label (for “sustainable energy transition”) that supposedly ‘give citizens and territories guarantees of rigor and transparency'” in the development of wind farms, so that they can “suitable”.

Co-designed with Bureau Veritas, the world leader in auditing and certification services, it will include, from June, Engie’s solar and wind activities in France, before being extended to methanization during 2022, the group assures. Bureau Veritas surveillance audits will be scheduled for 2023 and 2024.

“It is about building projects with local authorities, providing trust and systematizing our long-term commitments. On this basis, we will build custom projects. By adjusting the exact location and height of wind turbines in a given territory, for example,” said CEO Catherine MacGregor.

Specifically, this label includes nine commitments”that go beyond the regulatory requirements and that Engie is committed to systematically implementing”, argues the company. To reinforce the implication of the interested parties, it will be a question, for example, of deploying, for each project, a “customized and scalable interaction system”or even “provide the local municipality with an assessment of the positive impacts”.

TED: Engie’s miracle solution to overcome opposition to wind power