Overview

Belgium does not produce any of its own gas, but is a well-interconnected and important transit country. The port of Zeebrugge is one of Europe’s main gas trading hubs.

Zeebrugge has a churn rate of five, making it the third-most liquid hub after the NBP in the UK and TTF in the Netherlands, according to Frontier Economics. Fluxys operates the transmission system, which has a 4,000 km pipeline network.

The country’s gas consumption has risen steadily over the years, from around 8 billion cubic metres per year in 1973 to 15.7 bcm/y at the turn of the century, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Demand dropped following the economic downturn, from around 20 bcm/y in 2010 to about 18 bcm/y in 2012. Around 5 bcm/y is used for power generation while around 6 bcm/y is consumed by heavy industry, according to the IEA.

Recently, Belgium has mostly imported piped gas from Norway and the Netherlands, and LNG from Qatar. It is also connected to the UK through the Interconnector pipeline, which has been bidirectional since 2007.

Radical energy reforms were put forward by the Belgian Council of Ministers in July last year. Among them is a plan to use revenues earned from the 10-year lifetime extension of Electrabel’s Tihange 1 nuclear power plant to support investment in gas-fired plants and offshore wind projects.

The government plans to secure 800 MW of gas-fired power capacity by launching a tender for companies interested in building new plants. The selected plants will receive state support for six years after the commissioning date.

The government will take 70% of the revenues above a margin of 9.3% from electricity sales from Tihange 1 over the 10-year extension period. Of this, a maximum of one third of the revenue will be spent on support for gas-fired power generation and two thirds to reduce the cost for consumers of supporting offshore wind projects. However, the reform may breach EU laws on state aid.

Page updated: 14/07/2014