EurActiv: Norway overtakes Russia as EU's biggest gas supplier
Norway overtook Russia as the main supplier of the EU’s natural gas in 2012, a first for the Scandinavian country, the chief economist for the British Petroleum Group chief said in unveiling a new energy report in Brussels.
Christof Rühl, who is also a BP vice president, said that over the past 10 years, there have been two trends – the rapid growth of shale gas production in the United States and the rapid growth in liquefied natural gas trade. In the last year, shale gas production continued at a slower level, and LNG trade suddenly declined.
What emerged behind these trends was a “very interesting interfuel competition between coal and gas,” Rühl said. Globally gas consumption rose 2.2% faster in 2012 compared to a year earlier, but below the long-term average. The growth is largely US-driven, as gas consumption in the world’s largest economy has increased more than in any other region of the world.
At the same time, the EU and the former Soviet states have registered the largest regional declines in gas consumption, said Rühl, who presented BP’s 2013 edition of the Statistical Review of World Energy. MORE