If the surrounding countries do not close down their transport systems there is no reason for the state of crisis. HEP Gas supply reserved and stored sufficient quantity of gas.
This year, during the Gas Day organized by HSUP, the focus was again on the security of consumer supply, and the conclusion of the gathering is that no difficulties are expected within this field.
Marko Blažević, the director of state holding HEP Gas Supply, which supplies tariff buyers, stressed that the company was ready for the gas season 2014/2015 because they had been buying sufficient quantities of domestic gas, they had rented a large capacity of the gas storage Okoli, and they had a flexible contract on gas supply for covering peak loads. He pointed out that the price of supply security was high, to which Vedran Špehar from the Natural Gas also agreed, emphasizing that the market was still dropping, the gas production was dropping and the supply was diversified because the market was open, which in combination provided the security of supply. Therefore, there should not be any fear for the security of supply of protected buyers, but he believes that there is a large gray area should non-market measures be applied in case of threat in a broader-scale gas crisis.
“Should there be additional costs for the traders i.e. suppliers in such a crisis, they will face difficulties”, said Špehar. On 1st November, Ina puts the production fields Ika JZ into production, and on 1st July the field Izabela was put into production. 830 million kunas were invested in these two projects. Ivana Ivančić from PSP said that the Ukrainian gas storages were filled with only 53%, but the EU storages were filled to a record level of more than 90% of the capacity, and it was Gazprom who had been injecting gas wishing to guarantee security to their buyers.
The director of PPD Pavao Vujnovac stressed that the company reckoned on importing 750 million m3 of gas in that gas year. He pointed out that during the highest-consumption days, with a maximum exhaustion of domestic fields and storages, the import reached even 60% at certain points. “The gas in the storages should be paid, and it is questionable whether it will be used up should the winter be warm”, Vujnovac wonders. Nataša Vujec from Crodux-gas said that the two-year experience in gas trading had shown to them that buyers often planned their consumption badly and required too much gas, and this was where trading at the virtual trading point, which had been started that year and in which 178 transactions had been recorded in the first half of the year, had a beneficial effect. Vujec and Vujnovac agreed that if the surrounding countries did not close down their gas systems, there would be no reason for Croatia to declare the state of crisis with respect to gas supply. As from the beginning of the next year, the balancing energy trade will be possible when it comes to gas, HROTE has announced.