Gazprom Enters the UK Gas Market
June 26, 2006 at 2:35 am
Gazprom gets a foothold in the UK gas market by buying small Cheshire based company Pennine Natural Gas (PNG). PNG is only a small distribution company but does supply to a few major companies across the UK.
This purchase is a way in for Russian giant Gazprom who have recently expressed interest in buying Cetrica – the company who owns British Gas.
Gazprom are keen to expand its distribution operations in Europe and although they assure the expansion plans are for economic reasons only, there are still concerns that they may be able to use control over the energy market as a political tool.
After Gazprom cut supplies to Ukraine last winter after a dispute, we do not want to risk a similar threat to our gas supplies.
New Power Station for Centrica
June 19, 2006 at 5:00 pm
UK’s biggest energy supplier Centrica plan to build the country’s first new power plant for five years. The £400 million gas fired will be built in Langage, near Plymouth in Devon and will supply energy to 1 million homes.
The combined cycle gas turbine plant, which was cleared for planning six years ago, should be ready for operation for winter 2008 and be one of the country’s most energy efficient power plants.
Centrica hope to supply three quarters of demand for energy from their own sources in the future as opposed to just a third they have in the past. They hope that this new plant will help cope with future energy needs, allowing less reliance on the volatile wholesale energy market and perhaps reduce the need for a further increase in bills for British Gas customers.
Plans to Expand Gas Import Pipeline
June 7, 2006 at 4:35 am
There have been announcements this week of a planned expansion of one of the piplelines bringing gas into the UK.
The operator of the pipeline which runs between Zeebrugge in Belgium and Bacton on the East coast of England said they were planning to boost the capacity of the link by next year, increasing UK import capacity by an extra 2 billion cubic metres of gas per year.
There are already plans in place to increase the amount of gas the pipeline can import in time for this winter and with this new proposal it could mean the link could supply a quarter of the UK’s gas demand.
After the concerns last winter with rocketing prices, dwindling North Sea supplies and fears over shortages, this is just one of the measures in place to ensure that gas supplies are stable for the coming winter. There are also new pipe planned from Norway and The Netherlands to the UK as well as LNG imports from various locations.
