Italy - peaked in 1995, production falling at a rate of 5 - 6%

Germany - peaked in the '70s, production flat.

Denmark - peaked probably in 2005, official forecast up to 2009 is decrease by about 1%.

Netherlands - peaked on '70s, production essentially flat.

Poland - peaked in '70s, production has been flat at the level of about 4 billion cubic-m/year, but small increase lately.

UK - peaked in 2000, production falling at accelerating rate.

So all EU gas producers have peaked and most of them are quite small - the only really significant are the UK and Netherlands that account for about 80% of the EU domestic production. The total EU production peaked in 2001. The Netherlands have been able to compensate for the falling UK production - but this is clearly not possible in the future. The Netherland could, maybe, boost its production still by about 10 Bcm above the present level, but this cannot offset North Sea depletion.

So, we can see that the EU domestic gas production is going to decrease considerably in the near future. In 20 years time North Sea (UK, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands) will be almost totally depleted. This means that 80 - 90% of the EU domestic gas will be off. This will increase the imports demand considerably. But probably no outside supplier will be able to cover the EU consumption at the present level.

As we know, Norway cannot increase its exports to the EU. Algeria is a big exporter to the EU, but peaked in 1999. Russia and Central Asia will be more important in the future. Here we have the background.