EBRD To Focus on E European Gas

Integrating Eastern Europe’s Gas Markets is to be a key discussion theme at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s annual meeting on May 10 in the Cypriot capital Nicosia, the bank said April 25. 

EBRD’s newly appointed head of energy and natural resources, Nandita Parshad, will address why these gas markets are so crucial to the whole European energy market.

Romanian gas grid Transgaz’s CEO Petru Ion Vaduva will introduce the 'Brua' regional pipe project that will cross Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria, for which agreements were signed last year and which it hopes to have operational in 2020, arguing that it will “create a transit route for future gas reserves from the Black Sea.” Milosz Momot, a European Commission official working on the central and eastern European gas initiative, Cesec, will explain how market rules as well as infrastructure contribute to market development. 

The Brua pipeline project (Map credit: the EU's Vienna representation)

John Roberts, from the Atlantic Council and a past NGW contributor, is to ask if the region’s infrastructure and policy implementation are up to the job of securing enough gas imports to cover its future demand.

A conference organised by the Balkan & Black Sea Petroleum Association in Vienna this month heard about a number of schemes to improve security of supply in the region, including interconnections and storage, and development of offshore gas fields in Romanian waters.

For the latter, BRUA would be a key plank, as Romania seeks new interconnections in the region. Last year saw the inauguration of the Bulgaria-Romania interconnection, marking a new direction for gas to flow in and creating new trading opportunities.

Mark Smedley, William Powell