In 1993, Portugal had no backbone high pressure natural gas pipeline, storage and other infrastructures. From 1993 onwards, such infrastructures were built, and natural gas became one of the most important sources of energy used in Portugal.
According to 2020’s most recent data, the natural gas market has been witnessing an increase in consumption of 7.2% since last year.
Until 2006 the promotion of natural gas and the development of the system’s main infrastructures were handled by the Galp group companies, Transgás – Sociedade Portuguesa de Gás Natural, S.A. (“Transgás”) and GDP – Gás de Portugal, SGPS, S.A. (“GDP”), under concession agreements entered into with the Portuguese State.
The public service concession for the import, transmission and supply of natural gas through the high-pressure pipeline, was granted to Transgás, and the public service concession for the distribution of natural gas through regional pipeline networks, was granted to six different companies, held by the GDP group.
Most importantly, Decree-Law no. 30/2006 of 15 February 2006 (“Gas System Law”) transposed Directive 2003/55/EC, implementing in Portugal the common rules for the EU internal market.
The Gas System Law established (i) a National Natural Gas Distribution Network (RNDGN), licensed or licensed to several operators, to guarantee non-discriminatory and transparent access to the network infrastructures of Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) and RNDGN terminals, (ii) the legal unbundling between the network and infrastructure operators of the National Natural Gas System (SNGN) and the marketers, and (iii) the natural gas supplier and the last resort supplier.
The Gas System Law principles were specified by Decree-Law 140/2006, of 26 July 2006 (“Gas Regulatory Law”), with new rules regarding transmission, LNG facilities’ storage, and distribution and supply services.
As a result of these changes, the natural gas sector was unbundled, and is currently divided into several activities, each one with different operators. Thus, the sector is structured in (i) reception, (ii) storage and regasification, (iii) underground storage, (iv) transmission, (v) distribution, and (vi) supply.
With this briefing, we intend to present an overview on the functioning and organization of the different activities of the Portuguese Natural Gas Sector, as well as on the main players that operate on the market.