Germany should boost domestic gas production, says EON CEO

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Germany should boost domestic gas production, says EON CEO

E.ON's CEO says Germany should boost domestic gas production BERLIN Reuters said Germany should explore all options to increase domestic natural gas output including fracking, as Berlin triggered the alarm stage of its emergency gas plan in response to falling Russian supplies.

Leonhard Birnbaum said in an interview with the EconomicWoche podcast that we need to search without taboos for all solutions that will help us to improve our situation.

Birnbaum said a modest increase in domestic production would not be the solution to the current supply situation, but he said a small building block could help.

Germany triggered the alarm stage of its emergency natural gas plan on Thursday in response to falling Russian supplies, but stopped short of allowing utilities to pass on soaring energy costs to customers in Europe's largest economy.

We have to ask ourselves the question: Can we develop additional fields in Germany? He said that maximizing domestic production could be part of the solution and may be more environmentally friendly than other alternatives.

In Germany, natural gas and oil production has declined due to the ban of unconventional fracking and nature protection laws making it hard to get permission for new drilling.

Economy Minister Robert Habeck said there was no plans to change a ban on unconventional domestic gas fracking in April.