You clearly don't fully get what the risk is here for the UK.
For starters, the bulk of our gas comes from Norway. We have had a long standing agreement in place with Norway, which means Norway has certain obligations to the UK that it has to meet before it can offer gas to other countries it didn't have pre-existing agreements with. This is a treaty level agreement.
These are legally binding.
As we saw with the covid vaccine saga, a good contract can put you 'at the front of the queue'. Having a preexisting agreement makes it a lot secure for the Uk. I believe this accounts for over 60% of our imports. The fact we have dedicated pipelines direct from Norway to the UK do tend to favour us too.
This is at State (diplomatic) level and private sector level.
In addition to the existing agreements we also have this:
www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jun/16/british-gas-owner-centrica-signs-deal-norway-equinor-extra-gas-supplies
In June there was a big deal between British Gas and the state owned Norweigan oil company Equinor.
Now if anyone can tell me why Norway would sign a new deal to supply more gas to the UK if they couldn't maintain existing contracts to supply, then crack on. We have to pay the going rate which is the tough bit for us, but the supply itself is pretty secure - at least politically and contractually.
Its crucial for Norway too and worth remembering about Norway's state ownership of energy at this point. This is why you have great big floating vessels manned by the norweigian state military keeping an eye on the pipelines...
The next biggest source is Qatar. Why do you think we are sucking up to Qatar and not saying a lot about human rights atm, and football fans seeking to visit Qatar actively being told by the Foreign Sec to respect the culture there (and not mention 'The Gays'?)
This is perhaps subject to competitive pressures more and diplomatic sensitivities are relevant in that context. I note at this point, that on the day Sunak was doing his reshuffle, one of the calls Cleverly was making was to Qatar. This is a government priority and they do seem to be on the ball.
After that comes the Netherlands. But again, this will be largely protected in law and with agreement with private companies to supply. See my comments above about being in covid queue and existing contractual obligations protected under EU law.
By the time we get into the rest of the supply we aren't looking at huge quanities. I think we are currently importing more from the US than this graphic from 2015 suggests, and in terms of going forward this could be more problematic with more competition but going into THIS winter, we SHOULD be reasonably ok.
We probably can reduce consumption a fair bit too which will shave % points off what we need to import compared with last year as well.
Competition for demand with other countries should also be taken with it in mind that whilst WE don't have lots of storage capacity, the likes of Germany does and it is trying to keep it topped up as much as possible ahead of peak demand points, to a degree it doesn't normally have to. Thus we are not competiting with just in time style supply and this has also been reflected in the fact that the wholesale price has reduced considerably since the summer.
YES we absoluetely SHOULD be concerned. There is an issue with energy security in the UK. HOWEVER, going into this year the primary concern is over the market rate we have to pay for the UK rather than actual supply issues.
The lack of surplus in the market, is a worry if we have things like a strike in Norway or there is a fault with pipes or deliveries are late/blocked by things like a block in the Suez etc etc because that means we are more vulnerable to events out of our control.
This is why I am stressing this is more about a greater risk from black swan type events rather than having less supply available to us because of Russia directly. We have enough to cover our demands, proved there isn't an unforeseen issue. This is what makes our position much more favourable than say Germany's.
Long term we need to seriously be thinking about greater levels of energy self sufficiency so we are less exposed to market issues and black swan type events.
It has been the case that we have been at risk from the same problem for a number of years, the difference this year is that ability to adapt and find alternative sources should something not go to plan, is more serious.
We don't yet have a reasonable long term sustainability and supply policy for the UK which will give us energy security. THAT is the right issue this whole crisis tells us. We are also increasingly aware that sucking up to states with a dubious track record on human rights probably isn't working out too well with the Russian example, and this is starting to focus minds to move away from dependency on Gulf States.
I do wish that people would understand the nature of the structure of the supply/demand system on industry. We lack of understanding in this area, has contributed to poor decision making over the ref and subsequent delivery of Brexit.
Its also a REAL bug bear of mine about the poor understanding of why we do contigency planning and what constituents success in this. Again highlighted by Brexit and Covid.
If we are seeing contigency planning IT IS A GOOD THING. This also doesn't mean to say there is an immenient define bad thing that is definitely going to happen. Cos this is the point of contigency planning.
SO STOP IT WITH THE CATASTROPHISING!
And to be completely blunt about it, if the Norweigan pipeline somehow gets blown up, I can't say my first worry is going to be about whether we have a 3 hour black out on Wednesday evening tbh...