EER: The birth of a European gas infrastructure market

At the same time that the European gas market is being liberalised and integrated, a separate development is taking place, with a dynamic of its own, namely the Europeanisation of the gas infrastructure sector. This is a development that gets much less public attention but is no less important for the success of a competitive European gas market. What is happening, in effect, is that the (unbundled) gas infrastructure companies are 'following the market': rather than confining themselves to their traditional national markets, they are expanding internationally, competing with each other, innovating and diversifying. They have to do this, they say, to be able to service the trading markets efficiently. EER's chief editor Karel Beckman discussed this new development with the management of one of the companies that is taking the lead in this process: Dutch gas infrastructure company Gasunie. The company's message: don't stop us now - we are making the European gas market work.  MORE