Brussels, 15/02/2002 (Agence Europe) - The fifth meeting of the European Gas Regulatory Forum, meeting in Madrid last week, has adopted guidelines for Good Practice on Third Party access to the European Union gas network. According to the European Union this represents, "an important step forwards which means more integration and more transparency in the access". The Forum brought together representatives from gas Regulators in Member States and candidate countries, the Commission, the Spanish Presidency and representatives from EU Member States and Norway, industry and consumers. The main achievement at the Forum was the setting up of guidelines for good practice in accordance with which European gas transmission operators will ensure non-discriminatory access to the European gas network. In order to avoid conflicts of interest, the guidelines state that system operators shall be sufficiently functionally independent from the supply business of vertically integrated companies.
Participants were aware of the significant differences between national price structures for access to the gas network, which may hamper gas trade and market liquidity. The Forum therefore stressed the need for a European gas market based on common principles and co-ordination with regard to national access pricing structures and adopted a number of principles which should apply to charges and tariffs for the use of gas transmission networks including cost-reflective tariffs. One Member State, however, pointed out that tariffs should be cost-reflective only in the absence of effective pipeline-to-pipeline competition.
The Forum welcomed the decision by the GTE (the European Association of Gas Transmission System Operators) and its members to increase transparency by publishing available capacities, initially at least, at all cross-border points of the European gas grid. Forum participants agreed to further develop non-discriminatory rules for congestion management and capacity allocation in cases of scarce capacity.
The Forum recognised the range of obstacles existing in the European gas market, which can hamper interoperability between different gas networks and gas qualities. It therefore welcomed the creation of new open association called EASEE-Gas (European Association for Streamlining of Energy Exchange - Gas) with the objective of agreeing standards that overcome these problems. The Forum stressed the importance of rapid and tangible solutions to concrete technical obstacles to interoperability of different networks and gas qualities.
The Forum recognised the important role which long-term contracts have played in securing gas supplies for Europe and their compatibility in principle with the internal market in legal terms. It did, however, emphasise the importance of real supply-side gas-to-gas competition as an essential pre-condition for providing real benefits to consumers from market opening. Where necessary and legally possible, the Forum agreed that so-called gas release programmes under which contracted gas volumes may be made available to new market players, can enhance gas-to-gas competition.
The International Association of Oil and Gas Producers (OGP) presented a comprehensive analysis to the Forum on the European gas production potential and the potential of external gas suppliers within the context of a competitive single market for gas. The analysis showed that Europe is in a relatively favourable gas supply situation with significant domestic gas reserves within economic reach in neighbouring regions.
Work will be undertaken in the coming months to ensure rapid and coherent progress on the work and actions agreed at the fifth meeting of the Madrid Forum. The Commissioner in charge of energy issues, Loyola de Palacio, nevertheless, estimated that the progress achieved in Madrid would, "have to be confirmed in the coming months".