Balkans Gas Developments Still Face Structural Woes

摘要

The gas market in Southeast Europe, better known as the Balkans, is weighed down by several longstanding difficulties. The region bounded by Bulgaria to the north, Croatia to the northwest and Turkey to the southeast currently suffers from disconnected markets, owing to the lack of an integrated cross-border gas pipeline network, a heavy dependence on Russian gas and insufficient storage capacity. And in the future, the region will have to meet challenging European greenhouse gas emission targets. Nevertheless, these structural gas-sector problems have begun to be addressed. To reduce reliance on Russian gas and access new supply, several liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminals have been built, and regional ports have been developed.