Russia’s behaviour has boosted the EU’s planned Energy Union.
The commissioner responsible, Maroš Šefčovič, met energy chiefs from Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Italy, Romania and Slovenia on December 9th to talk about accelerating plans for better interconnection and integration of the still-fragmented regional gas market. Bulgaria’s interconnector with Romania will be working next year and a new pipeline to Greece is planned. Bulgaria and Serbia plan an interconnector too. Slovakia wants a 20 bcm Baltic-to-Balkans pipeline. Hungary is hoping to revive long-held plans to bring gas from Azerbaijan to central Europe. It would also benefit from the revival of a planned terminal for Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) on the Croatian island of Krk. This project, which would cost €600m ($744m) and is strongly supported by America, which will itself be exporting LNG from next year. The Krk terminal had stalled amid weak demand for gas, claims of Russian mischief-making and a furious row between Croatia and Hungary—the Hungarian oil and gas company MOL is the largest shareholder in its troubled Croatian counterpart, INA. Now Croatia—stung by the Russian cancellation of South Stream—says the project is back on track—it is about to launch a fresh feasibility study with the aim of completing the terminal by 2019.
Though the proposed facility's capacity is small—just 4 to 6 bcm—with the right interconnectors the Krk terminal could break Russia’s chokehold on gas supplies to south-eastern Europe.
An LNG terminal in Lithuania has already helped that country negotiate a large discount on the gas it receives by pipeline from Russia. Balkan countries hope to replicate their success.http://www.economist.com/news/business-and-finance/21635974-aftermath-debacle-over-russias-south-stream-pipeline-european-countries-are-making?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/dreamsnotstreams
