ENTSOG South-North Corridor GRIP 2017 - Main Report

5.4 The South-North Corridor: A Bridge Between New Needs and New Sources As indicated at the beginning of this chapter, EU supply needs, defined as the difference between the EU demand and the indigenous production, are very likely to increase under most of the future scenarios. In particular, the combination of the different demand scenarios with decreasing expectations for the indige- nous production leads to increasing supply needs over time in the ENTSOG TYNDP 2017 Blue Transition and Green Evolution scenarios.

The requirement for extra supply needs appears specifically stringent in the North-West Europe Region, affected by the accelerated cut of the L-gas production from the Groningen field (in the Netherlands), as decided by Dutch authorities for earthquake-related motivations. If the decline of the European production is an EU-wide concern, this issue is even more significant with regard to L-gas production due to the fact that L- and H-gas are not immediately substitutable  3) . In Germany, Belgium and France (the main countries using L-gas besides the Netherlands), a continuous and impacting process of converting areas currently supplied by L-gas to H-gas is already ongoing, in order to get the systems progressively adapted and fully supplied with H-gas by 2030, when the end of the Dutch L-gas exports to these countries is planned.

 3) For a complete description of the L- to H-gas conversion subject, please make reference to the North West GRIP 2017, available at the webpage: http://www.entsog.eu/publications/gas-regional-investment-plan-grips.

Image courtesy of Fluxys TENP

South-North Corridor GRIP 2017 |

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