Jonathan Stern on EU Gas, Past, Present and Future

Jonathan Stern, Head of Oxford Institute for Energy Studies Recorded in Vienna where Jonathan was co-chairing the ‘EU-Russia Energy Dialogue Gas Advisory Council’ ; and Jean-Michel Glachant (Director of the Florence School of Regulation) attending. In this interview we get a basic understanding were we (the EU) are today with gas and where we are going. “We are unsure where we are because things are changing so quickly, but the general view is that, after a decline of about 20% of demand in the EU, gas is stabilising, and will remain probably on this level for a few years unless decarbonisation towards renewables is very very successful, or the other probability is that coal will be phased out faster than we think, which means gas could improve its position a little bit, but we don’t see a very huge increase in gas demand." “The big problem that we have at the moment in Europe, and this is a new problem, is that we see domestic production beginning to going down much faster than we thought, principally because of the situation in the Netherlands.” “If you mean surprise in terms of cutting off gas because of Ukrainian problems, I think all of that is over because the EU is now very much involved in that process”