The aim of this article was to present the forecast of the European Union members states natural gas demand and to indicate supply sources of this energy medium. The available data shows that EU member states natural gas demand until 2020 will increase significantly. Comparing to the year 2003 the growth may reach even 40%. Polish gas demand will also increase but at much smaller scale and our national power engineering will be still based mainly on coal. Relating to the fact that EU member states are meeting only approx. 1/5 of its total gas demand (in case of Poland that is 32% in 2005), EU will have to increase gas import, especially, from the countries situated outside the European Union. European experts are particularly worried about great import share from Russia in the total gas import. In case of nine member states, Russian share exceeds 75% (in Poland this index was 65,4% or 92% taking into consideration all countries of the former USSR). Therefore, many EU member states will have to diversify supply sources of natural gas, especially, in order to reduce dependence on eastern gas supplies. Building new gas pipelines and LNG terminals serve this purpose.
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