A Gas Pipeline Model

In the context of European Policy, in December 2005, the Council called upon the European Commission (EC) to make a proposal to develop a Directive on the identification and designation of European Critical Infrastructure (ECI). The original focus on terrorist threats later evolved into an all hazards approach. The severity of consequences and European dimension are to be assessed on the basis of Public, Economic, Environmental and Psychological effects, whilst owners/operators of ECI need to establish a Sector specific operator plan, including identification of assets, risk analysis and countermeasure prioritization. The EC is developing cross-cutting criteria to support the process of ECI identification on the basis of severity of consequences of disruption or destruction of the infrastructure. For the Energy Sector an improved understanding of the criticality of gas supply routes and infrastructure is desirable and it is anticipated that a model of the transnational gas pipeline network would assist in the process of assessing the usefulness of the cross-cutting criteria applied to this sector.