North Sea Gas Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Lord Teverson
Main Page: Lord Teverson (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Teverson's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
(2 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Callanan (Con)
As I intimated in my previous answer, we are co-operating closely with the European Union, and as I said, throughout the summer, in the quiet months, the UK’s LNG terminals—we have 20% of the entire European capacity—have been working overtime precisely to help our European friends to refill their storage capacity in time for the winter months. Therefore, security is a top priority for us, and of course we work very closely with other suppliers such as Norway, with LNG suppliers, and with our European friends.
Lord Teverson (LD)
My Lords, it is incredible to me that Centrica, a private company, was just able to close our national gas storage facility without, it would seem, any consultation or intervention by the Government. What will stop that happening again in two or three years’ time?
Lord Callanan (Con)
We have received proposals from Centrica, which we are closely examining at the moment. I point out that the market in 2017 was in a very different position. A number of independent reports were produced by experts at the time, supporting that decision from Centrica. However, the situation is very different now, which is why it is now looking at reopening it.