The Interconnector is a

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...

pipeline Pipeline may refer to: Electronics, computers and computing * Pipeline (computing), a chain of data-processing stages or a CPU optimization found on ** Instruction pipelining, a technique for implementing instruction-level parallelism within a s ...

between the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

and continental Europe. It crosses the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea, epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the ...

between

Bacton Gas Terminal The Bacton Gas Terminal is a complex of six gas terminals within four sites located on the North Sea coast of North Norfolk in the United Kingdom. The sites are near Paston and between Bacton and Mundesley; the nearest town is North Walsham. ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

and

Zeebrugge Zeebrugge (, from: ''Brugge aan zee'' meaning "Bruges at Sea", french: Zeebruges) is a village on the coast of Belgium and a subdivision of Bruges, for which it is the modern port. Zeebrugge serves as both the international port of Bruges-Zee ...

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

. Construction of the pipeline was completed in 1998. It provides bi-directional transport capability to facilitate energy trading in both the UK and continental European gas markets. Gas export from the UK is termed "forward flow" and gas import to the UK is termed "reverse flow". The UK export capacity of the Interconnector is 25.5 billion cubic metres per year.

Economic impact

The pipeline provides not only the physical capability to move gas from one end of the pipe to the other, it has been a key factor in the liberation of energy markets across Europe - enabling energy trading and creating economic activity in the process. Such trading can result in future production being bought and sold because of the possibility of the use of the Interconnector.

Shareholders

Interconnector is owned by

Fluxys Fluxys is a Belgium-based company, mainly acting as a natural gas transmission system operator. In 2004, it employed around 850 people and its infrastructure comprised about of pipelines and a terminal in Zeebrugge, Belgium. The company is lis ...

and

Snam Snam S.p.A. is an Italian energy infrastructure company. As of 31 December 2019, it had a market capitalization of €15.4 billion. Snam was originally a subsidiary of Italian energy company Eni. It has since become an independent company, who ...

; Fluxys has direct, indirect, and joint shareholdings (with Snam), and Snam have the remainder- a 50% interest in 31.50% held jointly with Fluxys.

References

External links

* {{coord missing, Norfolk Belgium–United Kingdom relations Buildings and structures in Norfolk Energy infrastructure completed in 1998 Eni Natural gas pipelines in Belgium Natural gas pipelines in the United Kingdom North Sea energy Pipelines under the North Sea 1998 establishments in Belgium 1998 establishments in England

Economic impact

Shareholders

See also

References

External links