Next-month futures in Europe’s biggest economy surged as much as 4.4% on Monday to the highest level since October last year. The equivalent contract in France rose 4.3%.

In Germany, where nuclear power has long been a thorny political issue, operators are much less enthusiastic, despite talks of a nuclear restart surfacing in the wake of the German coalition government's recent collapse.

With piped gas supplies cut off after the war, imports of LNG from Moscow increased to around 18 billion cubic meters in 2023 from less than 14 billion cubic meters before the attack, according to EU data.

Production decreased 0.4% in March, led by drops in consumer and intermediate goods, and energy, the statistics office said Wednesday.

The study will be developed as one of the deliverables under the Joint Declaration of Intent (JDoI) of the UK-Germany Hydrogen Partnership, signed on September 26, 2023, between the UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK).

Germany would significantly increase research funding for fusion with an additional EUR370 million (USD403 million) over the next five years.

While hydrogen is at the core of Europe’s plans to eventually wean itself off fossil fuels, there are currently few buyers for the gas as it’s expensive to produce and requires infrastructure investments to make its use more viable.

SEFE’s trading of Russian LNG is controversial in Berlin, where lawmakers have urged the company to sever its links with Moscow. Germany opposes LNG imports from Russia, though it hasn’t banned them.

The government on Wednesday slashed its growth forecast for this year to 0.2% from 1.3%, after a contraction in 2023.

While the outlook is weak, the bank said it expects no major deterioration in the labour market, which has insulated the economy so far, and Germany was not facing a broad-based, prolonged recession.