European countries' gas dependence varies

Tue Jan 6, 2009 1:28 PM EST

business, eu, gas, glance, ukraine, russia-gas, five-european

Five European countries and Turkey are facing a shutoff of natural gas flowing through pipelines across Russia from Ukraine, while others face shortages. Here are basic facts about Russian gas and Europe:

WHAT'S IT FOR: About a third of Europe's 542 billion cubic meters per year of consumption goes to produce electricity production. Another third goes for home use for heating and cooking.

It's also used by heavy industry such as glass and steelmaking and chemicals.

Electricity accounts for most of the increased use of natural gas in Europe, with gas used to supply two-thirds of new power generation capacity.

"Gas has become the fuel of choice for new power generation," said Ian Cronshaw, head of the energy diversification division at Paris-based International Energy Agency.

Use for power varies widely, from only 10 percent in Germany to 40 percent in Britain and as much as 60 percent in the Netherlands.

A quarter of Europe's total energy consumption comes from natural gas. Of this, about 25 percent is imported from Russia.

VULNERABLE: Hungary gets almost all its gas from Russia, and natural gas accounts for 40 percent of energy consumption. Romania and Bulgaria are also heavily dependent on Russian gas through Ukraine.

BETTER OFF: France, thanks to widespread use of nuclear power, and Germany, thanks to coal, use little natural gas for electricity. Britain and the Netherlands use a lot of natural gas to produce electricity, but they have their own large reserves. Turkey imports Russian gas but gets it directly from Russia, bypassing Ukraine.

PLAN B: Vulnerable Hungary and Romania built reserves. France, Spain, Italy and Greece can import liquefied natural gas by ship. Electricity producers can use other fuels.

OUTLOOK: In the U.S., Hurricane Katrina in 2005 knocked out an equivalent proportion of energy capacity as Europe would lose should Russian natural gas supplies falter. "You didn't read about shortages then, because markets worked," Cronshaw said.

But Europe's gas markets are dominated by monopoly practices, Cronshaw said. "A lack of competition in Europe has very profound energy security implications. The answer here is make your markets work," Cronshaw said.