BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 5. Union alert can trigger mandatory gas reduction measures in the EU, Trend reports with reference to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The European Union adopted the regulation on co-ordinated demand reduction measures for gas at the end of July 2022.
The regulation targets a 15% voluntary reduction in the European Union’s gas demand between 1 August 2022 and 31 March 2023, compared to its five-year average. Several member states received derogations from the regulation and are targeting lower gas demand reductions.
Consequently, the effective reduction in gas demand is estimated to be 11% (or just over 30 bcm) compared with the same period in 2021-2022, if all the voluntary gas demand reduction targets are reached.
In the instance of substantial risk of a severe gas supply shortage and/or an exceptionally high gas demand, a “Union alert” could be declared by the European Council upon being proposed by the European Commission. The declaration of a Union alert would trigger mandatory gas reduction measures.
In addition to the record inflow of LNG, EU member states started to diversify their imports from non-Russian pipeline suppliers. Italy’s ENI reached agreement with Algeria’s Sonatrach in April 2022 to gradually increase pipeline imports from 2022, by up to 9 bcm/yr in 2023-2024. EU gas imports from Azerbaijan rose by 50% y-o-y in the first eight months of 2022. The European Commission signed a Memorandum of Understanding on a Strategic Partnership in the Field of Energy with Azerbaijan in July, noting that Azeri gas supplies could reach 12 bcm in 2022. The Baltic Pipe was inaugurated on 27 September 2022. The pipeline has a transmission capacity of 10 bcm/yr from Norway to Poland and 3 bcm from Poland to Denmark. Poland expects to receive 0.8 bcm of gas via the new pipeline system in Q4 2022.