Shortly after his inauguration in May 2017, the new President of South Korea has unveiled a new energy policy that shifts away from nuclear and coal power and focuses on renewables and natural gas instead. The move responds to growing safety concerns over nuclear power following the 2011 Fukushima accident and a series of earthquakes that hit southern Korea in 2016 and 2017. The energy transformation also responds to rising public hostility to coal power due to worsening air quality. Coal burning is also the main source of greenhouse gas emissions in the country, which has committed to reduce its emissions by 37% by 2030.
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How will LNG support Kuwait’s energy transition?
Kuwait is mostly known as one of the world’s largest oil producing nations and as a leading member of OPEC. But the country was also a pioneer in 2009 when it became the first in the MENA region to import LNG via a floating storage and regasification unit. At the time, LNG was considered a stop-gap solution to address chronic electricity shortages that threatened Kuwait’s economic and socio-political stability.
Today, Kuwait continues to lead the way in the region by being the first LNG importer to invest in a land-based LNG import terminal. The 22 mtpa facility, for which construction has begun at Al Zour industrial area, is scheduled to come online in 2021. Cedigaz’s latest report examines the risks and opportunities of Kuwait’s LNG strategy.
Ten major trends in the European gas market (Part 2)
The EU gas and energy sector is in the midst of a profound transformation driven by decarbonisation, digitalisation and decentralisation. The latest report by Cedigaz analyses in ten key points the evolution of the gas sector and includes forward looking views on new trends in EU gas markets.
| 6. Role of gas in the energy transition in the medium term: Natural gas is expected to be a key pillar of the EU energy transition. As the cleanest of all fossil fuels, it allows a quick reduction of the power sector’s emissions thanks to coal-to-gas switching. Moreover, thanks to its flexibility, natural gas is an ideal partner to renewables. Gas-fired power plants are well suited to follow rapid swings in power supply of variable renewables. In the transport sector, the cleanliness of natural gas is a key advantage for improving air quality, a major health and economic issue. In maritime transport, new regulations to reduce sulphur emissions from shipping play a key role in the development of LNG as a marine fuel. Natural gas, if it cannot decarbonise the heating sector, can make an effective contribution to reducing emissions from the sector and, in the long term, can be replaced by renewable gas. UK power supply & CO2 emissions from power plants
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