Natural gas socialism: enforced burden sharing among EU importers
Tom KirkmanIndependent Project Manager
Natural gas socialism.
AKA enforced “burden sharing” system.
By EU countries that import gas.
======================
“EU countries are negotiating proposed rules that would require them to fill their gas storage to at least 90% of capacity by Nov. 1 each year from 2023 and 80% this year – an attempt to reduce the leverage of Russia, which supplies around 40% of EU gas.
The proposal had worried some states with gas storage, including Hungary, Austria and the Netherlands, which feared their companies would be forced to buy large volumes of gas at near-record prices, while those in countries with little or no storage would not.
… The EU has vowed to quit Russian fossil fuels by 2027 in response to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, but for now Europe relies on Russian gas. The storage rules would aim to provide a buffer in case of disruptions to that supply.
Countries would be responsible for ensuring their storage is filled, which they could do by imposing measures such as obligations for gas suppliers to store minimum volumes.
● To soothe concerns about sharing the costs fairly between states, Brussels had proposed a “burden sharing” system where countries without storage sites must cover 15% of their annual gas use by filling equivalent storage in other states. ● …”