Downing Street today failed to rule out cutting off gas pipelines between the UK and European continent if supplies run low due to the Ukraine war.
A No10 spokesman insisted there were “no plans” to cut off supplies through ‘interconnectors’ between Britain and Ireland, the Netherlands and Belgium.
But he accepted the National Grid has “emergency procedures that are decades old”.
The Financial Times reported shutting off interconnectors is one option in a four-stage emergency gas plan, triggered if supplies run severely short causing a loss of pressure in the gas system.
Others are said to include shutting off supplies to large industrial users and asking families to cut their energy use.
Asked if cutting off interconnectors was one option, a No10 spokesman said: “I’ve seen those reports and there are no plans to do that.
“We are fully confident of our supply over the winter. We have a highly resilient system in this country which is reliable.
“You’ll know the national gas grid has emergency procedures that are decades old, but we don’t expect that to happen and there’s no plans for that.”
Asked if shutting off the pipelines was one of those options, he declined to say.
But he added: “I think it’s important to emphasise that’s not something we are planning on doing and it is important for the public to know we have a highly resilient energy system in the UK and we’re not anticipating any problems over the winter.”
According to the Financial Times, the UK is exporting large amounts of its gas supplies to European nations as they build up emergency reserves in the summer.
But during winter the trend would reverse, with Britain importing large amounts from the continent.
