ABSTRACT
The Soviet Union continues to place very high priority on the fullest possible use of its gas reserves for domestic consumption and into international trade, including both Eastern and Western Europe. This chapter aims to bring the gas effort into perspective both as to the needs and the importance of the U.S.S.R. as the gas supplier to Eastern Europe and as a very major source for Western Europe. Rumania is in a class of its own in that gases cover more than half of its primary energy consumption. The German Democratic Republic (GDR) and Poland, at less than 10 percent, constitute the other extreme. Per capita consumption is about the same in Austria as in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and the GDR; the Federal Republic of Germany is halfway between these and the Hungarian examples. The high Hungarian percentage is due to the substitution for residual fuel oil in dual-fired power stations.
