Politics & Regulation

The war in the Ukraine has reached the 55 year old, 2750-km Bratsva natural gas pipeline, a major transit route for Russian gas to Europe after Moscow's invasion.
 

As a sign of solidarity with European Union states seeking an alternative to the Russian gas, Germany has offered to help eastern states with ports in the North Sea or Baltic Sea to have access to liquefied natural gas through its ports, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Thursday, May 5, 2022, after a meeting with Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala.

For nearly six years now Nigeria has been trying to interest Europe in a 5,660-km gas pipeline that would transport Nigerian natural gas to Morocco and ultimately to Europe. The intention was to assist Europe in becoming less dependent on Russian gas.

The 580-kilometers Poland-Lithuania Gas Connector (GIPL), which has been under construction since 2020, began operation on Saturday, April 30, 2022.

Terrorists belonging to the Islamic States attacked a section of Egypt’s natural gas pipeline in the northern Sinai region on Sunday, May 1, 2022. According to Egypt’s security officials, the blast sparked up a fire, with no casualties reported in the incident.

Last week Gazprom halted gas exports to Poland and Bulgaria.  Poland is supplied via the 4,107-km Yamal - Europe gas pipeline; Bulgaria through pipes over Turkey.

"We are convinced it's better to produce gas in the North Sea than buying it from Vladimir Putin," Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen of Denmark said yesterday.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi is set to visit Algeria and sign an agreement to step up gas imports in an effort to end country’s dependence on Russian gas, sources close to the deal said.

Germany is taking concrete steps to end its dependency on Russian energy:  Imports of oil and coal from Russia will come to an end during the course of 2022.  Stopping the flow of natural gas to Germany will not happen as quickly, but Chancellor Olaf Scholz assures us it will be "very soon."

The urge for Europe to diversify away from Russian energy supplies amid the Russia-Ukraine crisis has revived talks about the EastMed gas pipeline, which carries gas from Eastern Mediterranean to South-East Europe and Greece.

The European Commission, however, insists on the need for the project to prove its commercial viability before approving it.

Italian Prime Minister, Mario Draghi, announced on Thursday, March 31, 2022, that he had discussed plans to construct a gas pipeline from Italy to Spain with the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, in a bit to help Europe is shifting from Russian gas dependency.

Draghi said that they discussed the idea of the Italy-Spain pipeline both in Rome and at the European Council.

Federal energy regulators on Thursday March 24, 2022 rolled back plans to consider conducting an assessment to determine how natural gas projects affect climate change, citing pushback from lawmakers and the industry leaders.

The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) today declared the early warning stage of the Gas Emergency Plan as a precautionary measure. A reliable supply continues to be guaranteed, Federal Minister for Economic Affiars and Climate Acrion Robert Habeck emphasized.

As war continues to rage in the Ukraine, Naftogaz, the state energy company responsible for operating the country's network of 38,550-km of gas pipelines, works around the clock to service 12 million households in the Ukraine as well as myriad customers in the European Union.

In the wake of the 2022 winter which saw the gas storage fill levels sink to historic lows, the German Bundestag met over the weekend to affirm that the gas storage operators are required to fill storage facilities up to 90 percent of capacity by 1 November of each year.  To this end the Bundestag passed a corresponding law.