Transport Capacity
BBL Company offers shippers services with which they can safely, reliably and efficiently transport gas between the Netherlands and Great Britain.
Forward Flow (FF) services offers transport capacity from the Netherlands to Great Britain and Physical Reverse Flow (PRF) offers transport capacity from Great Britain to the Netherlands. All on the basis of contracts of varying length.
Interruptible services offers capacity that is available when firm capacity has not been nominated.
Firm products
Firm products guarantees shippers firm transmission capacity from the Netherlands to Great Britain (Forward Flow) and the other way around (Reverse Flow). Capacities are auctioned via the PRISMA platform as well as offered via the Implicit Allocation Mechanism (IAM).
Features
- Sold via auctions on the PRISMA platform and FCFS via Implicit Allocations (IAM) on Plexhub platform
- Guaranteed firm capacity
- Annual, seasonal, quarterly, monthly, daily and within day basis
Registered shippers can book capacity via the PRISMA platform by following the procedure as set out in our Booking Procedure and/or can book capacity via Implicit Allocations (IAM). Depending on the sales mechanism a variety of different capacity products is offered. More information on the offered products and corresponding sales dates can be found here:
For April through September of every gas year BBL Company will offer its Forward Flow products as Conditional Firm products. When certain criteria are met, BBL Company will treat the Conditional Firm products as Interruptible products. These criteria mean that, if within this time frame the BBL pipeline is in the Reverse Flow direction and the GB domestic gas demand is lower than the threshold, Forward Flow Nominations may be interrupted when the sum of Forward Flow Nominations is higher than the sum of Reverse Flow Nominations.
For October through March of every gas year, BBL Company will offer its Reverse Flow products as Conditional Firm products. When certain criteria are met, BBL Company will treat the Conditional Firm products as Interruptible products. These criteria mean that, if within this time frame the BBL pipeline is in the Forward Flow direction and GB domestic gas demand is higher than the threshold, Reverse Flow Nominations may be interrupted when the sum of Reverse Flow Nominations is higher than the sum of Forward Flow Nominations.
BBL Company will publish the GB gas demand projection for Gas Day D on the Operational data webpage before 12:00 AM CET on Gas Day D-1, which is based on a daily publication of National Gas Transmission. The physical flow direction of the BBL pipeline is also published on that same page. On the basis of this information it will be foreseeable whether or not nominations may be interrupted.
If interrupted, BBL Shippers will receive a reimbursement of their capacity bookings based on their interrupted nominations.
| Direction | Forward Flow | Reverse Flow |
|---|---|---|
| Period | April through September | October through March |
| Publication GB domestic gas demand threshold | Before the 1st of March of every year | Before the 1st of September of every year |
Interruptible products
BBL Company (BBLC) offers interruptible day-ahead capacity for both forward flow (NL to GB) as well as reverse flow (GB to NL) when all firm day-ahead capacity for forward flow or reverse flow respectively has been sold. The total amount of interruptible day ahead capacity which will be offered is restricted to the maximum technical capacity of both directions. This is 10 GWh/h when the BBL pipeline is in the forward flow direction and 7,7 GWh/h when the BBL pipeline is in the reverse flow direction.
Enhanced pressure service (EPS)
For the calendar year 2025, BBLC and National Gas Transmission (NGT) have agreed (like in the years before) on the enhanced pressure service (EPS). This pressure service is rendered as a best-efforts day ahead only service and offers BBL Shippers additional capacity in the reverse flow direction up to 10 GWh/h in case NGT can render this service.
BBLC will ask for this EPS to be rendered by NGT in case all Day-Ahead Firm Reverse Flow capacity has been sold.
In case NGT can render the EPS service partly or in total for the next Gas Day, the additional capacity up to a maximum of 2,3 GWh/h may be accommodated.
NGT has announced planned maintenance from start of August 2025 through to the end of October 2025 as stated on their website. During this NGT maintenance period, the EPS will not be available.
Features
- Sold via Day ahead auctions on the PRISMA platform
- Discount of 10% to the standard firm products
- Non-guaranteed interruptible capacity
- Only available when all firm capacity in the applicable direction has been sold
The reserve prices for interruptible capacity products will have an ex-ante discount of 10% to the standard firm products conform NC TAR article 16. Since BBLC has no experience with selling interruptible capacity, it is not reasonable to estimate the probability of interruption based on historical flow data. Moreover, since BBLC is a merchant interconnector without baseload capacity, also expected flow data are not suitable to estimate the probability of interruption. BBLC expects a higher probability of interruption than 0% based on historical flow data. Therefore, the discount is set on 10%, until further notice.
Reprofiling Service B
With reference to article 2a (ii) of the Reprofiling Service B as stated in Exhibit H of the General Terms and Conditions:
- The conversion rate is set at 0% for Q4 2024 and at 40% for Q1 2025
- The conversion rate is set at 0% for Q4 2025 and at 40% for Q1 2026