Today, Energinet.dk launches its Open Season 2009 to obtain a market signal regarding four projects for prospective expansion of the Danish gas transmission system's connections with Germany, Norway, Poland and Sweden, visualised for the period 2013-2015.

Background

Until now, Denmark has been self-sufficient in natural gas from the Danish part of the North Sea and therefore independent of gas from Russia. This will be the situation until 2016, when Denmark will have to start importing a certain volume of natural gas to meet the Danish demand.

For some years now, Energinet.dk has conducted investigations into the possibilities of constructing new gas pipelines to ensure the supply of natural gas to Denmark from other sources than the Danish part of the North Sea.

At present, three concrete natural gas projects are being considered: First, supply from Germany via a reinforcement of the gas pipeline across the Danish-German border; second, supply from Norway via a new submarine pipeline to Sweden and Denmark known as Skanled; and third, a new submarine pipeline from Poland to Denmark - called Baltic Pipe - in combination with a Swedish compressor to allow transmission to Sweden.

Open season process

The first non-binding phase of Energinet.dk’s open season process will be from 30 January to 30 April 2009 and the second phase from 7 August to 7 September 2009. If all the expansion projects are realised, the accumulated investment may well exceed EUR 0.8 billion. To justify such investments, Energinet.dk requests from the market players the expression of long-term interest in the form of bids for 10-year contracts. 

The bidding material is based partly on the Open Season Model Paper published by Energinet.dk in October 2008, partly on the comments received from the more than 70 stakeholders attending Energinet.dk’s Open Season 2009 seminar in November 2008 and finally on the ongoing dialogue with the Danish Energy Regulatory Authority.

To the extent possbile, Energinet.dk coordinates its open season process with the ongoing decision processes concerning expansion in the adjacent Swedish and German gas transmission systems and in the new neighbouring transmission sy-stem in Poland. Coordination is also ensured in relation to the Norwegian offshore independent system operator.
 

Additional information and seminar

The complete set of rules for Open Season 2009 is available here.Interested parties are welcome to attend an open season seminar to be held on 25 March 2009 in Copenhagen.

Please send an e-mail with your contact details to loh@energinet.dk before 28 February 2009 if you are interested in receiving an invitation to the Energinet.dk Open Season 2009 seminar.