OIES Podcast – Gas Markets in South East Europe

In this latest OIES podcast the Gas Programme brings you a discussion of gas markets in South-East Europe and their efforts to diversify away from Russian gas. James Henderson talks to Julian Bowden about his latest paper on the topic, in which he outlines that although the region is relatively small in gas terms it nevertheless provides an interesting example of the general moves in Europe to establish greater flexibility of supply. Romania is the major market in the region and is largely supplied by its own domestic supply, but other countries have historically been very reliant on imports from Russia. However, this is changing rapidly thanks to the construction of a number of LNG import terminals, the building of important pipeline infrastructure to connect the countries in SE Europe with each other and with the rest of Europe, and the development of new upstream resources in the Black Sea, primarily in Romania and Turkey. When all these factors are combined it becomes clear that the supply mix is changing rapidly and that SE Europe could even have aspirations to become an important element in the EU’s overall diversification strategy, especially if the plans for new LNG import terminals are fulfilled.

By: OIES