UK ‘more dependent’ on EU for natural gas

Bloomberg

The UK is becoming more dependent than ever on the European Union to look after its natural gas, even as it negotiates its exit from the bloc.
Britain is expected to ship a record volume of natural gas from the UK to Belgium through an interconnecting pipeline on Wednesday, capping a year of buoyant flows to the mainland.
The rising exports suggest the UK is stockpiling gas for the winter in facilities outside its borders after losing its largest storage site, Rough. When the weather turns frigid later this year, it will rely on those on the continent to send the fuel back.
Yet Brexit means the country is severing political and economic ties with those countries. It has left question marks about UK-European gas trade, needed to keep the lights on and heaters running in Britain in its coldest months.
The record flows are “both ironic and emblematic of the wishful thinking behind Brexit,” said Pierluigi Frison, a gas trader at Green Network Energy Ltd. in London.
“The romantic vision
that the UK can function better separated from Europe gives way to the unescapable reality of geography.”
The Interconnector pipe-line, which can flow in either direction between southern England and Zeebrugge, Belgium, has been operational since 1998. The previous record for flows to Belgium was 59.9 million cubic meters in April 2011.