BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 24
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
For natural gas import and production in the European Union (EU), the largest market share in 2019 (measured as a share of national indigenous EU production) was 100 percent in Estonia, Finland and Sweden, where only one entity dominated national production and imports, Trend reports citing Eurostat.
The market shares of the gas producers in the EU have been in general decreasing since 2007.
The largest natural gas import and production company had the lowest level of market penetration in Ireland (30 percent) and Belgium (31 percent).
Compared with 2007, the market share of the largest natural gas import and production company decreased in 13 Member States in 2019. Meanwhile, the share remained stable in Finland and Sweden (at 100 percent), whereas it increased in Ireland (1.8 pp), Lithuania (19.6 pp) and Estonia (21.0 pp).
In the third quarter of 2020 EU gas production reached approximately 11.5 bcm, 29 percent (4.7 bcm) less than in the same quarter of 2019.
During the whole Q3 2020, similarly to the previous two quarters, gas output was below the 2015-2019 range, reflecting the dwindling trend of gas production in the EU. In the biggest EU producer Netherlands natural gas production in Q3 2020 decreased significantly, by 41 percent (by 3.1 bcm), amounting to 4.4 bcm, which was the lowest in the last seven years. According to the announcement of the Dutch government on 22 September 2020, the production cap for the Groningen gas field is set to 8.1 bcm for the 2020 gas year (1 October 2020 to 30 September 2021). In the previous gas year the production cap was set to 11.8 bcm (1 October 2019 to 30 September 2020), which was supposed to decline further to 9.3 bcm as of 1 October 2020, however, the Dutch government announced a sharper than expected cut, in order to curb earthquakes and accommodate gas supply to the Covid-related decreasing demand.
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