The International Energy Agency estimated in their recent Golden Rules of Gas report that European Union gas demand could increase by 18 percent in the next twenty years if government policy is favorable to gas and gas remains competitively priced. That is more than the current gas demand of Qatar, the UAE and Kuwait combined. However, this outcome is by no means certain.

Greater gas demand is expected to be driven by the decision of European Union member states to reduce their reliance on nuclear and coal-fired power for environmental reasons and hence the need to rely more on gas-fired power generation to replace this output. At the same time government projections indicate plans to reduce gas demand in the long term to be replaced by renewables power and efficiency gains. If governments succeed with their renewables and efficiency policies, or reverse their anti-coal and anti-nuclear stances then gas demand may not grow, or may even decline in the coming decades in Europe.

"The European gas market presents a huge opportunity for the Gulf region to grow and diversify its export revenues in the long run. Yet the Middle East is not the only region of the world endowed with large gas resources and regional players and governments must work hard to build the regulatory conditions, diplomatic support and corporate relationships necessary for the contracts and investments in infrastructure to secure gas flows to Europe" said Badr Jafar, President of Crescent Petroleum.

"We at Crescent Petroleum are working hard to build up the corporate relations and upstream infrastructure necessary to deliver gas to Europe via our operations in Iraqi Kurdistan. Alongside the equally important shorter term priority to satisfy domestic gas needs, we believe that this is a key long term step to increase the prosperity of the region," he said.

Even if new domestic unconventional gas resources can be developed effectively, domestic gas production is expected to fall by 18 percent between 2010 and 2030, equivalent to Turkish gas demand today. If Europe is unable to develop its unconventional resources the decline in production could be 50 percent over the same period. So Europe’s gas import needs are likely to rise whatever happens to demand.

Currently, the EU relies on imports for 63 percent of its gas needs, the balance made up by indigenous production. About 7 percent of EU gas supplies come from the Middle East, overwhelmingly LNG from Qatar.

Other established suppliers dominate the European gas market with established pipeline infrastructure from Norway, North Africa and Russia ensuring that these countries’ existing supply positions are secured.