REUTERS - A consortium of western companies and Russia’s Gazprom that is due to build the controversial subsea Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany said on Tuesday it was starting preparatory work in the Greifswald bay off Germany’s Baltic coast.

IEA - Dr Fatih Birol, the International Energy Agency’s Executive Director, met Monday with Peter Altmaier, Germany’s Minister of Economy and Energy. The bilateral meeting focused on the IEA’s role in the global clean energy transition thanks to its expertise across all fuels and energy technologies, as well as energy efficiency.

PLATTS - Germany's total primary energy consumption for 2017 is forecast to rise by 0.8%, mainly due to strong economic growth, with oil and gas further boosting their market share to 58.3% of the energy mix, German research group AG Energiebilanzen (AGEB) said Thursday.

GAZPROM - the Nord Stream gas pipeline transmitted its 200 billionth cubic meter of gas from Russia to Germany via the Greifswald delivery point.

Gerhard Schröder, the former German chancellor, looks set to deepen his already close ties with the Russian energy sector, after he was nominated as an independent director to the board of state-controlled oil company Rosneft.

Russia's Gazprom will soon be able to bid for up to 12.8 Bcm/year of extra capacity in Germany's 36.5 Bcm/year Opal natural gas pipeline after an EU court lifted a temporary ban late Friday.

Germany raised the proportion of its power produced by renewable energy to 35 percent in the first half of 2017 from 33 percent the previous year, according to the BEE renewable energy association.

It was noted that Gazprom’s gas supplies to the German market had reached a record of 49.8 billion cubic meters in 2016. The upward trend in gas demand continues in early 2017. In January, gas exports grew by 23.2 per cent versus the corresponding month of 2016. Between February 1 and February 15, gas deliveries added 37 per cent compared to the same period of last year.

Gazprom’s supplies to the German market continued to grow, rising 23 per cent this September and 20.4 per cent this October versus the corresponding months of 2015.

Germany consumed 5% more gas and its imports were 13% higher than in 2014. But the surprising statistic is that its 2015 exports of gas grew by 35% year-on-year to top 30bn m3.