ENTSOG Gas Regional Investment Plan (GRIP) 2017 - 2026 / Southern Corridor / Main Report

Executive Summary

This 3 rd edition of the Southern Corridor Gas Regional Investment Plan (GRIP) 2017–2026 provides information on the Gas Transmission infrastructure plans, both by TSOs and 3 rd party promoters, that will shape the energy landscape in the coming decade. The information and the analysis contained in this report is consistent with the TYNDP 2017– 2026 since the publications of the two documents have been scheduled both for 2017 with only few months separating one from the other. Compared to TYNDP, GRIP is more focused on the Regional issues. The inclusion of flow analysis constitutes one of the main improvements in comparison with the 2 nd Southern Corridor GRIP edition in 2014. The total number of projects in the Region is 131 out of which 20 FID and 111 non-FID. These are split in the three main categories as follows:

Categories

FID NON-FID TOTAL

LNG

1

8

9

PIPELINE

15

93

108

UGS

4

10

14

The Region is characterised by the existence of a few very large projects, mostly interlinked and sometime also competing, aiming at the transportation of Caspian, Russian and Eastern Mediterranean gas to Europe. Some of them are influenced by wider geostrategic considerations of the main players in the European gas scene which makes their assessment particularly engaging. In the Supply chapter, reference is made to the recent developments that have im- pacted the global gas market including the normalisation of demand in Asia after the spike caused by the Fukushima accident, and the increase of availability in the USA due to shale gas, and their result on the coal vs natural gas and the LNG vs pipe gas competition. The network analysis shows a different image between the eastern and western parts of the Region. Although in the reference case almost no shortages occur, under the Ukraine dis- ruption scenarios shortages appear in Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia and Hungary which are more dependent both on Russian gas supplies and on the Ukraine route. These are relieved progressively as more projects are implemented. The implemen- tation of the PCI projects in 2030 is sufficient to meet almost any shortage (with the exception of Romania), although implementation of all PCI projects is highly improb- able as this group includes projects in competition as well as highly immature ones. TAP (which is already under construction), East-Med, the east – west gas transmission corridor between Romania and Austria, Eastring, IAP and the new LNG Terminals, in the Adriatic and in northern Greece are among the key projects contributing to the improvement of the network flexibility. However Romania remains somehow­ exposed, if the White Stream project which is not included in the PCI list, is not taken into account, although this could be drastically changed in case new gas fields in the Black Sea are put in operation. As it could be anticipated, the dependence on Russian gas remains high in the eastern part of the Region while the supply of LNG is important for Greece, in case of a disruption of the Ukraine route.

Southern Corridor GRIP 2017–2026 |

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