The Bear Growls, The EU Grovels: Adventures in the European Gas Market

Among those hoping that global warming is real we should now count the EU.  As winter approaches there is, quelle surprise, the initial hint of yet another gas supply crisis between Russia, Ukraine and Russia’s EU customers.  The problem is that those pesky pipelines have to go through somewhere to reach the market and that somewhere happens to be the Ukraine (unless it’s Poland, more on that later).

Source: US DOE, for better map resolution

All those red lines running Northeast-to-Southwest carry gas from Russia to the EU countries.  There is just no getting around the Ukraine for most of the transits; it is big and (if you are Russian) in the wrong place.

Gas: The Great Green Hope for Europe

As noted previously, gas use in Europe is roughly the same as that of the US, a bit over 20 tcf annually. …

Gas From Shale Deposits: A Worldwide Game-Changer? (Part II)

Editor’s note:  This article is the second of two on shale gas production.  The first dealt with the U.S. situation; this one looks at the potential impacts of shale gas production in Europe and China.

Natural gas production in Europe, currently just over 11 Tcf, has been falling rapidly over the past decade.   About three fourths of Europe’s gas is produced in just three countries: the UK, Norway and the Netherlands.  Production peaked in 2003 at 13.5 tcf.

Consumption, on the other hand, continues to rise.  Gas use in Europe stood at 20.5 tcf in 2008 and is likely to increase further as coal-fired power plants retire or are phased out of service for environmental reasons.  Most of Europe’s imported gas comes from Russia (about 80%), with the remainder mostly as LNG.…