The European gas hub wants to nationalize the gas pipelines, to protect strategic national resources
Norway will nationalize all of its natural gas pipelines within the next five years, the country's oil and energy ministry said on Friday. The nationalization plan would grant Norway greater control over its critical infrastructure. Standing in the way of immediate nationalization are the existing concessions, which will only expire in 2028. After that, Norway can proceed with its plan. This is the application of a classic norm according to which strategic national infrastructures, in any sector, are under state control. France, for example, has purchased all of EDF, a strategic structure for the country. Instead, in Italy ENEL is only 26% public, a gift from the 90s and from Prodi.
Norway became Germany's largest natural gas supplier last year, overtaking Russia, and Germany's gas imports fell by 12.3%. Norway supplied Germany, Europe's largest economy, with 33% of all imported gas in 2022, while Russia's share in the German gas market fell to 22% last year, it said earlier in January the German Federal Network Agency, Bundesnetzagentur. Also in January, Norway unveiled plans to pump the current high volumes of natural gas for at least another five years, through 2028, with operators pledging $30.3 billion to develop new deposits and the extension of the lifetime of those currently in production.
Norwegian gas production was 9 billion standard cubic meters higher in 2022 than in 2021, with gas now accounting for more than half of production from the platform. “Gas production is projected to remain around 2022 levels for the next four to five years,” management said in January.
Norway's oil and gas ministry said on Friday it was notifying licensees that the country wants to "make use of the right of repatriation at the end of the license period," adding it "wants complete state ownership of core parts of the Norwegian transportation system." Norwegian gas".
Norway also owns the country's largest bank, telecom operator Telenor and oil giant Equinor, Reuters said on Friday. The Norwegian pipeline network is currently owned by Gassled, thanks to a decade-long partnership between the area's offshore oil and gas producers.
One of Gassled's co-owners told Reuters on Friday that he was surprised by Norway's move to nationalize the pipeline network. Norway already holds a 46.7% stake in Gassled through state-owned companies Petoro and Equinor, both of which hold stakes in Gassled.
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The article The European gas hub wants to nationalize gas pipelines, to protect national strategic resources comes from Scenari Economici .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/lhub-europeo-del-gas-vuole-nazionalizzare-i-gasdotti-per-tutelare-le-risorse-strategiche-nazionali/ on Sat, 29 Apr 2023 14:28:49 +0000.