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industry & government news

BREXIT ‘COULD LEAVE UK SHORT OF ENERGY’

Mr Alvera also claimed that much of
the UK’s gas imports originated from
Russia, having been piped across the
rest of Europe.
The extent of UK reliance on Russian
gas has been a source of controversy
since the Novichok poisonings in
Salisbury, in March last year.
Less than one per cent of UK gas
consumption last year came directly from
Russia as liquefied natural gas imports.
However, the ultimate source of the
UK’s piped gas imports is harder to
determine, with one estimate finding
that 36 per cent of it ultimately came
from Russia in 2017.
The warning echoes the findings of
a 2017 House of Lords report, which
said that the UK could be “more
THE UK IS RELIANT ON EUROPEAN GAS IMPORTS vulnerable to supply shortages in the
event of extreme weather or unplanned
THE UK WOULD be vulnerable to gas stake in one of the two main UK-Europe generation outages”.
supply shortages and price hikes after gas pipelines. The risk would arise upon the UK’s
Brexit, an industry leader has warned. The UK has become overly dependent exit from the EU’s Internal Energy
Marco Alvera, head of European on imported natural gas to meet its Market, which would potentially take
industry body GasNaturally, told winter fuel needs, Mr Alvera warned. place at the end of the transition period
the BBC that EU nations could restrict He said this was because the UK’s on 31 December 2020, under the
gas exports to the UK during winter own North Sea gas supplies had wound terms of the Withdrawal Agreement
cold snaps in order to prioritise their down, while at the same time the negotiated with the EU.
own citizens. country had shut down much of its gas In the case of a no-deal Brexit, the
“We’ve spoken to several ministers storage infrastructural capacity. UK would be at risk immediately upon
and civil servants over the last two years. “We see one of the consequences leaving the EU.
Energy has not been discussed enough.” of global warming is more extreme The bulk of the UK’s natural gas
The UK imports almost half the gas it temperatures in the summer and in imports come via Norway, which is part
consumes via pipelines from Europe. the winter,” he told the Business Daily of the Internal Energy Market, although
Some 39 per cent of the UK’s programme on BBC World Service radio. it is not an EU member.
electricity supply was generated from “In the week when we had the ‘Beast The Lords report also concluded that
natural gas last year, according to from the East’ very cold spell coming, it was possible, but “unlikely that tariffs
official government statistics. the system was already under a lot of will be applied to UK-EU trade in gas
“I would make [energy security] a strain, and the UK was taking a lot of gas and electricity post-Brexit, even in the
high priority point in the discussions, from Europe that was stored in Europe.” event of a no-deal scenario.
and I haven’t seen it be like that,” The UK could remedy the situation “However, the energy industry could
said Mr Alvera, who is also the Chief relatively easily, he said, by converting be affected by tariffs on products used
Executive of Italian gas pipeline old exhausted North Sea gas fields into in the construction and maintenance of
company Snam, which owns a minority gas storage facilities. the energy system.”

national security matters. Institutional
investors and foreign sovereign wealth
funds have invested in the utilities
sector for some time and are present
in multiple European countries. The
UK government last year approved a
series of landmark measures aimed at
encouraging businesses worried about
the national security aspect of foreign
takeovers of British companies to raise
concerns that could then be investigated.
The majority of these proposals were
aimed at Beijing, insiders said. NATIONAL GRID HAS SOLD ITS REMAINING STAKE IN CADENT

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News.indd 2 18/07/2019 15:30