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South-North Corridor GRIP 2017 |
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Image courtesy of GRTgaz
6.3.4 IN FRANCE: REVERSE CAPACITY FROM
SWITZERLAND TO FRANCE AT OLTINGUE
In France, an open season organised in 2012 confirmed that the market was
interested in capacity, but no binding commitment was made in light of the costs
required to create firm capacity, valued at the time at 258 million €. In 2014, GRTgaz
reviewed the investments required and proposed the creation of 100GWh/d in
quasi-firm capacity for a budget valued at the time at 12 million €. After consulting
the market and once the CRE had issued its approval on 17 December 2014, in
2015 GRTgaz decided to make the investments needed to create entry capacity of
100GWh/d to which an additional 100 GWh/d of interruptible capacity may be
offered. The utilisation of such capacity may be dependent on that of Taisnières and
Obergailbach.
The project consists in adapting the Oltingue station, the interconnection point with
Switzerland, and the Morelmaison station in order to reverse the direction of the gas
flows. The cost of the project is estimated at 17 million €, once the initial studies
have been completed.
Availability of the capacity is planned for 2018 when the exit capacity in Italy and the
transmission capacity in Switzerland will be delivered.
By creating a new entry point in France, this project will give access to new sources
of Libyan and Algerian gas by pipeline as well as Azeri gas. France will then benefit
from a new source of gas transmitted from Azerbaijan via the Trans Adriatic Pipeline
(TAP), which will provide 10bcm of Azeri gas to Italy in 2020.
This project also connects the North PEG and PSV marketplaces in both directions,
thereby providing new trading opportunities between these markets.
The project “Reverse capacity from CH to FR at Oltingue” is included in ENTSOG’s
TYNDP with the identification code TRA-F-45.