Due to its central location in Europe, Germany is an important transit center for Natural Gas imports from Russia and the North Sea. The 200-mile, 1.2-Bcf/d Sachsen-Thueringen-Erdgasleitung (STEGAL) extends from St. Katharinen, Czech Republic to Reckrod, where it connects to the MIDAL system. STEGAL allows Germany to import natural gas from Russia via the Czech and Slovak natural gas transmission systems. It is also possible for STEGAL to operate in reverse flow mode, facilitating the transmission of North Sea natural gas to the Czech Republic and Slovakia instead.

E.ON Ruhrgas and Gaz de France (GdF) jointly own the 2.1-Bcf/d Mittel-Europaeische-Gasleitung (MEGAL) system, which has two parts. MEGAL-Nord is a 290-mile Pipeline linking the Czech Republic and France via Waidhaus, on the Czech-German border, and Medelsheim, on the French-German border. MEGAL-Sud extends 100 miles from Oberkappel, on the German-Austrian border, to Schwandorf, where it connects to MEGAL-Nord. Besides facilitating the transportation of natural gas from Russia to France, the MEGAL system also has several interconnections with Germany’s domestic gas transport network.

The Trans-European Natural Gas Pipeline (TENP), a joint venture of E.ON Ruhrgas and Italy’s Sname Rete, runs 600 miles from the German-Dutch border to Italy. This system also supports a reverse flow operation, so it would be possible to also use the TENP to transport Algerian or Libyan natural gas from Italy to Germany.