Natural gas Market perspectives for Mediterranean Countries

The share of natural gas in the total energy consumption of the Mediterranean basin is still relatively low at about 18% of the total energy budget, compared with the world's 20%. In fact, though, this average figure hides very large disparities. The total production for the whole basin cam to 93.4 billion cubic meters in 1990, while consumption reached 134.7 billion. So it can be seen that the Mediterranean basin still runs an overall production deficit, covering only 69% of its own consumption requirements with its marketed production in 1990. Gas strategies are evolving rapidly, both in the exporting and importing countries of the region. In the importing countries, the policy is relatively simple, the aim being to procure their supplies at lowest cost and under the best safety conditions. In the exporting countries, though, the search for long-term stability of receipts is being seen more and more as an adjunct to the policy of increasing the volume of trade and improving the internal value of their gas resources, in a context of a narrower range of choices and very acute economic constraints in the short and medium terms. An inventory of gas requirements in the larger countries of the Mediterranean shows how large the natural gas market growth potential is. Our analysis of existing and firmly committed gas transport infrastructure projects (LNG lines, gas pipelines) shows that the current decade may be marked by unprecedented development of gas transfers among Mediterranean countries. Not all of the cooperation opportunities may be seized, however, because of the financing bottleneck. 9 refs., 1 fig., 3 tabs