The emergence of markets in the natural gas industry

As countries have deregulated prices and lowered entry barriers in the natural gas industry, many new participants have emerged, promoting competition in the newly created markets. The increased competition has benefited everyone through more efficient pricing and greater choice among natural gas contracts. Four distinctstructural models have emerged in the industry's restructuring. The traditional model (a vertically integrated industry) has been increasingly replaced by models that decentralize the industry along horizontal and vertical lines. With increasing decentralization, regulation of the industry focuses on the pipeline transportation and distribution, the industry segments with natural monopoly characteristics. Regulation aims to protect both end users and participants in the deregulated segments from the market power of companies operating in the monopolistic segments. As a result of deregulation, two major markets emerge: the natural gas market (which facilitates the trading of natural gas as a commodity) and the transportation market (which enables market participants to trade the services needed to ship natural gas through pipelines). Competition and open entry are crucial for these two markets to function efficiently. The transportation market is affected by the market power of pipeline companies, but resale of transportation contracts brings competition to this market and facilitates the efficient allocation of contracts. Intermediaries and spot markets promote efficient pricing and minimize transaction costs. Markets have become more complex with deregulation, and trading mechanisms are needed to ensure the simultaneous clearing of natural gas and transportation markets at minimum cost to the industry. Two main trading models guide transactions: the bilateral trading model (which relies on decentralized bilateral negotiated between market participants) and the poolco model (which relies on a centralized entity to coordinate transactions). Properly applied, both models lead to the same outcome. The bilateral trading model has dominated because of its simplicity of implementation, but the poolco model has great potential once problems of sharing and processing information are addressed.Environmental Economics&Policies,Water and Industry,Economic Theory&Research,Markets and Market Access,Oil&Gas,Water and Industry,Oil Refining&Gas Industry,Markets and Market Access,Access to Markets,Oil&Gas

Development of natural gas and pipeline capacity markets in the United States

Deregulation of the U.S. natural gas industry has been under way since the late 1970s. The industry was deregulated to create competitive markets in natural gas and its pipeline transportation, in the expectation that competition would guide transactions toward a more efficient outcome. The author provides an overview of the deregulation process and its effect on the development and functioning of natural gas and gas transportation markets in the United States. He analyzes the trading of pipeline capacity in primary and secondary markets and the regulation of pipeline transportation, identifies mechanisms that pipeline companies use to coordinate bilateral transactions, and summarizes deregulation's main achievements in the U.S. natural gas industry. Industry achievements in the past 15 years show that expectations were not realistic. The United States enjoys a highly competitive interstate transportation market. Both markets have benefited from the deregulation of natural gas production and marketing and the liberalization of natural gas prices. Introducing open access to interstate pipelines and their unbundling from gas sales has allowed end users to participate in the efficiency gains in upstream markets. All this has contributed to declining retail prices for all major consumer categories. Deregulation is far from complete, however. Current regulation of interstate pipeline companies and the secondary transportation market does not promote efficient allocation of transportation contracts. Flexible pricing of transportation contracts should be introduced in both the primary and secondary transportation markets. But deregulation of retail markets remains the most important task and the bigger challenge facing industry regulators. Small-volume end users (such as residential or commercial customers) are captive to local distribution utilities, without access to competitive wholesale markets. All end users should be able to choose a natural gas supplier and receive natural gas at the minimum cost to society.Oil&Gas,Water and Industry,Markets and Market Access,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Transport and Environment,Water and Industry,Oil Refining&Gas Industry,Oil&Gas,Carbon Policy and Trading

Market development in the United Kingdom's natural gas industry

The author shows how, in the United Kingdom, government and industry participants have responded to challenges created by opening the natural gas industry to competition. He concludes that, as a result of cooperation between the government and industry participants, appropriate mechanisms can be established for operating and balancing system and for trading natural gas and transportation capacity. The deintegrated natural gas industry in the United Kingdom is off to a promising start after a long gestation. The author describes the processes of the Network Code, a market-based method for balancing the pipeline system and optimizing transportation by British Gas TransGo (BGT), the transportation and storage arm of British Gas (formerly the publicly owned monopoly transporter and supplier of natural gas). The Network Code is a set of rules that determine how users of the pipeline system cooperate with the system operator when seeking transportation services. The operator uses price signals generated through the flexibility mechanism to choose the balancing measures with the lowest cost to society. The author analyzes the four mechanisms used in physical gas markets, describes developments in the U.K.'s financial gas market, and describes pipeline capacity trading in primary and secondary markets and BGT's pricing of capacity and transportation services. The most important issue today, says the author, is whether industry participants can reach a consensus on how to enhance the existing framework to make markets more efficient. Development of the underdeveloped financial gas market will require cooperation between BGT and the Office of Gas Supply to give the International Petroleum Exchange access to BGT's electronic network, so that it can record and settle transactions. Both BGT and its customers will need to contribute time and resources to developing an efficient tariff structure for pipeline capacity and transportation services in the contract and tariff markets.Oil&Gas,Markets and Market Access,Information Technology,Water and Industry,Environmental Economics&Policies,Water and Industry,Oil Refining&Gas Industry,Carbon Policy and Trading,Energy Trade,Oil&Gas

Evolution Education Questionnaire on Acceptance and Knowledge (EEQ) : standardised and ready-to-use protocols to measure acceptance of evolution and knowledge about evolution in an international context

The lack of standardised assessment of evolutionary knowledge and acceptance of evolution across Europe makes comparisons between studies difficult. The Evolution Education Questionnaire on Acceptance and Knowledge (EEQ) was constructed to measure attitudes and understanding across Europe and beyond. We aimed to compile a brief instrument to allow for easy application in school and university. The target group of the EEQ was freshman university students who had just finished their secondary education. However, several components of the questionnaire were developed and validated for additional target groups. Therefore, this questionnaire may, in addition, be suitable for students in secondary school, in-service teachers as well as the general public.This method report describes the contents and application of the EEQ and provides information on survey conduction, data preparation, analyses and interpretation of results to serve as a standardised and ready-to-use protocol to measure the acceptance of and knowledge about evolution in a local, national or international context. To allow for sampling in different European countries, we present the EEQ in 23 European languages.The lack of standardised assessment of evolutionary knowledge and acceptance of evolution across Europe makes comparisons between studies difficult. The Evolution Education Questionnaire on Acceptance and Knowledge (EEQ) was constructed to measure attitudes and understanding across Europe and beyond. We aimed to compile a brief instrument to allow for easy application in school and university. The target group of the EEQ was freshman university students who had just finished their secondary education. However, several components of the questionnaire were developed and validated for additional target groups. Therefore, this questionnaire may, in addition, be suitable for students in secondary school, in-service teachers as well as the general public. This method report describes the contents and application of the EEQ and provides information on survey conduction, data preparation, analyses and interpretation of results to serve as a standardised and ready-to-use protocol to measure the acceptance of and knowledge about evolution in a local, national or international context. To allow for sampling in different European countries, we present the EEQ in 23 European languages

European first-year university students accept evolution but lack substantial knowledge about it: a standardized European cross-country assessment

International audienceBackground: Investigations of evolution knowledge and acceptance and their relation are central to evolution education research. Ambiguous results in this field of study demonstrate a variety of measuring issues, for instance differently theorized constructs, or a lack of standardized methods, especially for crosscountry comparisons. In particular, meaningful comparisons across European countries, with their varying cultural backgrounds and education systems, are rare, often include only few countries, and lack standardization. To address these deficits, we conducted a standardized European survey, on 9200 first-year university students in 26 European countries utilizing a validated, comprehensive questionnaire, the "Evolution Education Questionnaire", to assess evolution acceptance and knowledge, as well as influencing factors on evolution acceptance