Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
eight EU members that do not belong to the IEA), but this legislation is
very closely modelled on the IEA oil-stock rules.
However, Europeans have focused their energy-security concerns less
on oil and more on gas - and on Russian gas in particular. The EU is
surrounded by a variety of suppliers within pipeline distance (such as
Norway, Azerbaijan, Libya and Algeria), and by others (such as Qatar and
Nigeria), which can ship their gas to Europe by LNG tanker. However,
Russia has a higher share of world gas reserves (25 percent) than Saudi
Arabia has of world oil reserves (21 percent), so it is likely to be Europe's
mainstay gas supplier for the long term. Provided, of course, that the
rocky relations between Russia and Ukraine - still the conduit for eighty
percent of Russia's Europe-bound gas exports - do not bring Russian gas
flows to a halt, as happened briefly in 2006 and more seriously in 2009.
The IEA sets no rules on gas storage for its members, partly because
gas is, for reasons mentioned above, not an issue of common concern
to its membership, and partly because gas is harder and costlier to store
than oil - only some countries have the right geology to do so on a large
scale. In fact, the IEA has advised against any set requirement for strategic
gas stocks. (“Strategic” stocks refers to stocks designed to fill the gap in a
A Ukrainian demonstrator gestures during a protest against Russian plans to
increase the price for gas in front of the Russian embassy in Kiev in late 2005.
Several dozens of Ukraine's nationalists staged a protest as Kiev and Moscow
launched a war of words over natural gas supplies for 2006, which ultimately
culminated in Russia briefly turning off the Ukraine's gas supply (as it did again
again in 2009).
