Vortex wrote:Keepz wrote:the Norwegians don't have the pipeline capacity to divert that much gas away from the UK and into Europe.
So is the Sleipner-Zeebruge link already at capacity?
And how about other links?
Don't know, and neither do you, because that information isn't public; but I'd be astounded if all the links from Norway in to mainland Europe had not been running at full capacity for days if not weeks already, given the weather. And the fact is that if you look at Norway's production capacity and their pipeline capacity they still have plenty left over and nowhere to send it but here, even when they are supplying the mainland at full whack.
While I'm here, perhaps I could take issue also with the notion that the UK is "dependent" on Russia for 2% of its gas. The fact that we buy 2% of our gas from Russia doesn't make us dependent on it. I buy about 10% of my food from Sainsbury's but that doesn't make me dependent on Sainsbury's for 10% of my food; if they were suddenly to decide to stop serving me, guess what - I can go to Waitrose, or Tesco, or M & S, etc. This is the position for the UK, where we have the best diversified gas sourcing and supply infrastructure of any gas importer anywhere in the world.
This is thanks entirely to billions of pounds' worth of investment by our useless, failed market and the Government's naive and short-sighted policy of allowing the market to make its own decisions. It's also why we don't have as much gas storage capacity as some other EU markets - we don't need as much, because we are not exposed to a single import source as they are. And it shows how misguided it is to assess security of supply only by reference to gas storage capacity.
,.... WTF is that ? Vortex?