Advantages
When formed, the Gas Ring would align with the principles of the Treaty establishing Energy Community and Stability pact. It would, moreover,
• create strong practical economic incentives for countries to implement the terms of the Energy Charter Treaty with respect to gas, which may otherwise be seen as a ‘paper exercise’ for those markets currently without gas
• facilitate increased supply diversity by allowing supply to the ring from almost any direction and from multiple directions, facilitating the connection of new sources by giving them access to a larger pool of demand than via simple radial branches, and more secure access, due to the technical security of supply benefits
• enable gasification of the seven markets to proceed flexibly in to relation to the sequence of development of the new major pipelines bringing gas through or past the region such as Nabucco, TGI, TAP, GUEU-White Stream-PEGP
• link the seven markets of Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, UNMIK, former Yugoslav Republic Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia into a regional market configuration
• connect six regional capitals (Belgrade, Sarajevo, Podgorica, Tirana, Skopje and Pristina), three of which are ungasified at present
• foster co-operation in the regional energy economy by promoting constructive inter-dependence, as distinct from seeking complete ‘independence’ from one-another on the one hand or dependence on the other hand
• bring gas deep into currently ungasified areas, touching 6 of the 20 distribution case study cities of the SEE Regional Gasification Study (Pristina, Skopje, Tirana, Podgorica, Niksic, Mostar), five of which are completely ungasified at present and passing near 6 other distribution case study cities ( Kosovo Mitrovica, Tetovo, Elbasan, Zenica, Uzice and Leskovac)
• directly link the gas markets of four EU neighbours, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, and Hungary, with the other seven SEE gas markets
• significantly enhance technical security of supply, since a disruption at any one point in the ring could be overcome by supply around the ring in the other direction. This would also make the scheduling of any major maintenance works significantly easier
• allow greater flexibility for balancing by the transmission system operator/s in the region
• provide region-wide access to regional underground storage (UGS) for all seven western-most SEE markets, which would increase security of supply, via facilities being developed in the north-east corner (up to 0.8 Bcm at Banatski Dvor in Serbia), other sites in central Serbia (3 to 5 Bcm) and possibly other potential storage sites nearby in Romania and Hungary, and in Albania (0.5 to 2 Bcm) in the south-west corner on the opposite side of the Energy Community Ring
• improve the commercial position of importers by allowing seasonal swing to be managed with regional storage contracts, rather than via import contracts
• diversify the markets for importers by both increasing the access to alternate markets and reducing their reliance on any one source of supply
• facilitate the future development of meaningful regional gas trading, both from multiple sources of gas and multiple import points into the region and also between countries in the region
• realise economies of scale in the long-term as new injection points and UGS facilities are developed that would not be available from the development of linear-radial branches
