State aid: Commission opens in-depth investigation into German plans for electricity capacity reserve // Brussels, 7 April 2017

The basic proposition is that the reserve ratio—the ratio of the cash reserves to deposit liabilities—determines what we call the money multiplier; that is, when new reserves are put into the private banks, how much they can expand the money supply through their lending and relending process.

Ruhrgas will abolish the previous regime under which capacity reservations had to respect the fictitious contractual path between the point where the gas is entered into the system and the point where the gas is withdrawn from the system (so-called « Vertragspfadmodell ». The new regime will allow customers to book gas transport capacities separately at entry and exit points without booking any capacity between the two points. Customers will also be able to book across tariff and quality zones - high (H) and low (L) calorific gas - throughout Germany. Ruhrgas will continue not to charge any quality adaptation fees, except for conversion ...[+++]between H and L-gas, as long as the flexibility in the system allows it to do so.

However, congestion may also appear where import capacity is used less intensively, but where inadequate arrangements exist for allocating capacity, or where long-term capacity reservation agreements exist without "use-it-or-lose-it" principles.

This is partly the result of a long-term reservation agreement for 60% of the total capacity of the only cable connecting Western Denmark and Norway ("Skagerrak cable") for the benefit of the Norwegian electricity producer Statkraft and Elsam, the dominant electricity producer in Western Denmark.

Although certain of those Member States are in favour of maximising prices since they have low reserves, a great capacity for absorbing oil revenues, a high degree of production-capacity utilisation or a relatively low GDP, such as Algeria, Venezuela or Iran, others such as Saudi Arabia and other Gulf producers prefer to moderate prices since they have abundant reserves, low absorption capacity and often surplus production capacity: they therefore wish to avoid the emergence of substitute energy forms while at the same time wishing to ...[+++] maintain oil's position on the world energy scene in the medium and long term, together with their market share.