International trade in gas in the Netherlands

Information on exports and especially on imports of gas by country of origin is only on a limited base available.

The current statistics on the import and export of gas by country of origin in the Netherlands is based on an allocation key that distribute the trade figures per border crossing point to various countries. This allocation key was estimated by statistics Netherlands in 2008 , based on expertise by GasTerra and a questionnaire under shippers . Most likely this rather outdated allocation key does not longer represents the current situation and needs to be revised. It is however not possible to update this allocation key based on the previous method, because of the changed (international) market regarding the trade in gas.

Statistics Netherlands is asked by the Ministry of Economic affairs and Climate policy, as part of its contributions to the National Energy Outlook (2017), to investigate new possibilities to detect the country of origin of imported gas.

For this project, Statistics Netherlands has acquired information on the international trade in natural gas from various actors and stakeholders: Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy, GasTerra (main gas trading company), Gasunie Transport Services (GTS, the Dutch Transmission System Operator for gas), National Environmental Planning Agency (PBL), Regulatory body for the gas market (ACM) and colleagues from the statistical offices in Germany and Belgium.

The report makes a recommendation for a country of origin specification based on country entry points.

This report on international gas trade in the Netherlands describes the current methodology and a proposal for improvement for the country specification of the origin of the gas available in the Netherlands.

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