1. Gas Centre report
In the Gas Centre, the member companies ¹ discuss issues related to introducing open market features and elements in countries with economies in transition. They also exchange information and study current topics such as security of supply ² with the aim of bridging importing and producing countries.

This report is focusing on the security of natural gas supply in the European part of the UNECE area (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe: Europe, North America, and Near East).

1 The group of United Nations Gas Centre companies consists of some twenty-five gas companies based in the UNECE-area. Some of them are production, transportation and sales companies, some are active in only a limited part of the gas chain. 2 Recently, the EU, the IEA (International Energy Agency) [in World Energy Outlook 2002] and gas company organisations like Eurogas (European Union of the Natural Gas Industry), OGP (International Association of Oil and Gas Producers) and IGU (International Gas Union), issued publications and reports (partly) on security of the natural gas supply. In this Gas Centre report, we make reference to these reports. The Gas Centre is grateful to the IEA, EU, Eurogas, OGP and IGU for being able to use some of their data and information in this report: •IEA – World Energy Outlook 2002 (2002), Natural Gas Flexibility Study 2002); •EU – Towards a European strategy for the Security of energy supply (2001) and •EU – Draft Directives on Security of Supply and Stockage for Petroleum Products and Natural Gas (2002); •EUROGAS – Eurogas Comments on the Green Paper on Security of Energy Supply (2001), Security of Gas Supplies (Markets, Principles and Actors) (13 June 2002), Eurogas Response to Proposed Security of Natural Gas Supply Directive (21 February 2003); •IGU – Report of IGU Working Committee: Gas Prospects, Strategies and Economics (2003) •OGP – Enlarged EU/EEA Gas supply and policy framework (2002) and final version (2003)