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In 2001 the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) was created by some of the world’s leading natural gas producing and exporting countries in order to promote their mutual interests through cooperation, in particular with regard to extracting the maximum value from their natural gas exports. My core research question is: Does cooperation among GECF member countries explain those exporters’ market power in highly import-dependent natural gas consuming countries? To determine the influence of the GECF’s cooperative actions and policies, I study the GECF’s cooperative behaviour and measure the role of (collusive) producer conduct in terms of its contribution to achieving the main GECF objective: attaining gas prices that are measurably above the cost of production and hence help producers earn significant economic rents. I employ a variety of methods from the international relations literature on cooperation and cartelisation, collective action theory and an economic measurement model in three case studies. I find that cooperation among GECF members partly explains their market power in a number of import-dependent gas markets. This is so despite the GECF’s weak degree of institutionalisation. The reasons for the GECF’s influence on effective cooperative results are: first, conducive structural conditions in many gas importing markets favouring cartelisation; second, GECF members use methods such as artificial market entry barriers (e.g. long-term term contracts negotiated in a non-transparent way) to secure their market power and third, the GECF faces less severe internal procedural challenges that plague other cartels such as collective action problems, especially cheating. Cooperation among GECF exporters hence contributes to high(er) prices of natural gas. This causes economic inefficiencies and a transfer of wealth—and political power—from gas consumers to producers. It also hinders climate change mitigation as cleanerburning gas remains too expensive to replace ‘dirty’ coal in power generation.

Magistro baigiamajame darbe išanalizuotas pasaulinės gamtinių dujų rinkos veikimo modelis, suskystintų gamtinių dujų terminalų technologijos įtaka pasaulinei gamtinių dujų rinkai bei atskiriems pasaulio regionams priklausomai nuo išvystytos dujų transportavimo infrastruktūros, sukurtas ekonominis SGDT teikiamų valstybės reguliuojamų paslaugų kainų nustatymo modelis Lietuvoje, iškeltos SGDT funkcionavimo ekonominio poveikio gamtinių dujų kainų pokyčiams Lietuvoje (izoliuotoje rinkoje) problemos bei pagal atliktus empirinio tyrimo rezultatus pateikti siūlymai rinkos dalyviams bei kitiems suinteresuotiems asmenims dėl galimų veiksmų pradėjus veikti SGDT 2014 m. gruodžio mėn. Lietuvoje. Pirmajame skyriuje sudaromas pasaulinės gamtinių dujų rinkos veikimo modelis, nagrinėjami ryšiai tarp pagrindinių jo sudedamųjų dalių (gavyba, transportavimas, vartojimas vidaus rinkoje), naujai atrandamų technologijų įtaka kiekvienai iš jų. Antroje dalyje analizuojama Lietuvos gamtinių dujų rinka ir ją supanti teisinė, ekonominė bei politinė aplinkos, aptariamos SGD galimos perspektyvos Lietuvoje. Trečioje dalyje analizuojamas autoriaus kartu su Valstybinės kainų ir energetikos kontrolės komisijos specialistais parengtas ekonominis SGDT teikiamų paslaugų kainos skaičiavimo modelis, aptariama importo kainos prognozavimo metodika, įvertinami pasirinktos metodikos trūkumai ir privalumai, aprašomi kt. metodai, kuriais remiantis ketvirtoje dalyje atliekamas empirinis tyrimas šiame darbe iškeltai... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / This Master thesis contains: presentation of global natural gas market functioning model and LNGT technology impact on this market, as well as regions according to their infrastructure of gas transportation; creation of economic model for calculating natural gas import prices forecasts and forecasts for prices of regulated LNGT services in Lithuania; presentation of economic problems of LNGT impact on natural gas prices in Lithuania (as an isolated market) and considering the results of empirical research, suggestions of possible actions for market players and third parties after Lithuanian LNGT begins its operations in December, 2014. The first part of the thesis includes examination of global natural gas market functioning, the relations between its main components (extraction, transportation, consumption in domestic markets) and influence of the new technologies for each of them. The second part analyses Lithuanian natural gas market: its legal, economic and political environment, as well as presents LNG perspectives in Lithuania. The third part consists of introducing the economic LNGT services’ price model which was created by author of this thesis in collaboration with specialists of National control commission for prices and energy, also the methodology of calculating forecasts for natural gas import prices, its advantages and disadvantages, as well as other methods which were employed to solve the main problem of the Master thesis in the last part of this work.