Results of ENTSOG`s `Gas Stress Test` Published

In 2017 the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Gas (ENTSOG) conducted a `stress test` (security of supply simulation) for the European gas network and recently published a report on the results. This Union-Wide Security of Supply Simulation Report 2017 found that particularly South-East European countries (namely Romania and Bulgaria) as well as Finland could run into severe issues in case of disruption of gas supplies to Europe.


The test assessed 19 supply and infrastructure disruption scenarios, covering all of the 13 newly defined Risk Groups of the new gas security of supply regulation 2017/1938. The risk assessment by the `stress test` was required under article 7 (1) regulation 2017/1938 to identify and assess emergency gas supply corridors and also identify which member states can address the identified risks.


Of the 19 supply and infrastructure disruption scenarios, particularly scenario 1, in essence a more severe Russia-Ukraine gas crises, like those of 2006 and 2009, proved to be problematic.  ENTSOG found that in case of a 2 month disruption of all gas imports to the EU via Ukraine, infrastructure limitations would result in the need to curtail gas demand in Romania by 9 per cent, in Greece around 2 per cent, but in Bulgaria 71 per cent of gas demand would have to be curtailed (see page 25 of the report). These numbers look even worse when modelled for a disruption via the same route during a peak day of exceptionally high gas demand, arising with a statistical probability of once in 20 years. Numbers for Bulgaria are looking similarly bleak in case of disruption of the largest infrastructure to the Balkan region (pages 37/38 of the report).


Besides these findings,  the report highlights two more `traditional` gas infrastructure issues in Europe:
1) Finland  - in case of a disruption of all imports to the Baltic states and Finland a 100 per cent disruption in Finland would occur, due to infrastructure limitations (no connection to another country) (page 35 of the report).
2) Denmark and Sweden - in case of the disruption of the largest infrastructure to Denmark (technical disruption of Ellund) both member states might have to implement up to 40 per cent demand curtailment, again due to limited infrastructure availabilities (page 48 of the report).


Overall, however, the report shows that the impacts of disruptions for the other European countries in all of the 19 assessed scenarios would be rather limited.



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