Gas network and market : à la carte?

Abstract

The institutional setting of open gas networks and markets is revealing considerably diverse and diverging roads taken by the US, the EU or Australia. We will show that this is explained by key choices made in the liberalization process. This liberalization is based on a redefinition of the property rights associated with transmission grid usage. That leads to different systems for the transmission services, as well as for the gas commodity trade, which in turn depends on the network services to get any market deal actually implemented. Not only do those choices depend on the physical architecture of the network, but also the perceived difficulties and costs to coordinate the actual transmission services through certain market arrangements.