To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform how much gas was imported into the UK from each gas exporting country in each of the last five years. (186376)

[holding answer 18 February 2008]: In the last five years gas has been imported into the UK via pipeline from Norway, Belgium and, since 2006, the Netherlands. It is not possible to identify the countries of origin of the gas physically received from the Netherlands and Belgium. However, it is believed that the majority of the gas received from the Netherlands is sourced from the Dutch sector of the North Sea and the majority of the gas from Belgium is sourced from Norway via Zeepipe which terminates at Zeebrugge. In addition, since 2005 relatively small amounts of liquefied natural gas (LNG) has also been imported by tanker—from Algeria, Egypt, Qatar and Trinidad and Tobago. In the 11 months to November 2007 LNG accounted for 5 per cent. of total gas imports. Data on the proximate sources of gas (i.e. separating out Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands and LNG) are available on BERR's website in Energy Trends Table 4.3—

http://stats.berr.gov.uk/energystats/et4_3.xls

Data for the whole of 2007 are due to be published on 28 February 2008.

Data for the whole of 2007 are not yet available. The following table gives data for 2003 to 2006 along with data for the 11 months to November 2007.