OPEN ACCESS - THE NEW MARKET APPROACH TO NATURAL-GAS POLICY

Efforts to stimulate market competition in gas suffer from two fundamental problems. High transport costs sharply limit the number of competing suppliers in any market and the industry has strong natural monopoly elements in portions of its delivery system. Government policy approaches in the USA, Canada, the UK and the continental EC have featured 'open access' pipeline transportation to link competing buyers and sellers. Because of regional differences, however, progress towards an ultimately workable system and the prospects for its success are very different in the four regions.