In the last edition of this report we listed a series of problems affecting the market. It is increasingly apparent that deregulating energy markets is not easy. The path is full of pitfalls and very few countries which have embarked in this course are now where they thought they would be. Three regions of the world provide many valuable lessons in privatisation and liberalisation, Europe, North America and South America. Some countries in each of these regions were the first to embark on energy market liberalisation and provide many case histories, some with successful and a few with disastrous outcomes. Another interesting factor in Europe and the US is the combination of local and central markets; in the US federal versus state and in Europe national versus the EU. Market deregulation has given an impetus to the emergence of a small number of very large players which are increasingly dominating national markets and, some believe, threatening competition.
The Gas Deregulation Report outlines the progress of gas market deregulation and privatisation in every continent and the situation of each of the countries with gas markets. An overview of the global gas sector is provided and an extensive series of tables, charts and graphics are contained in the report.
