German Economics Minister Michael Glos said Wednesday that with the end of the Russia-Ukraine gas dispute, Germany will have to ponder over securing domestic sources of energy so as to ensure future needs.

"We have to fundamentally think about how we can secure our energy supply over the long-term with energy sources from Germany, " he said.

Germany has depended heavily on energy imports from Russia, with 36 percent of its natural gas and over 25 percent of its crude oil coming from Russia.

Officials from Russian energy giant Gazprom and its Ukraine counterparts Naftogaz said Wednesday they had agreed on a five- year deal under which Kiev will buy gas at the Russian border at a rate of 230 U.S. dollars per 1,000 cubic meters of gas.

The new price amounts to a huge rise from the 50 dollars that Ukraine had been paying until now, a remnant of the subsidized Soviet-era pricing system.

The settlement capped a dispute between Kiev and Moscow over natural gas, in which Gazprom cut off supplies to Ukraine.

The cut-off caused panic in western European nations, where gas imports mainly were pumped from Russia via pipelines running through Ukraine.

Glos and other conservatives in the government have urged to reconsider Germany's decision to phase out all nuclear power stations, which supply about 30 percent of German electricity.

However, their call has attracted opposition from their Social Democratic (SPD) government partners.

The former SPD-Green coalition government under Gerhard Schroeder ordered in 2000 to phase out all 18 German nuclear plants by 2020. The first was closed in May 2005.

Besides nuclear stations, near 50 percent of German electricity comes from coal and 10 percent comes from wind power.

Source: Xinhua