Assessing business risks of natural gas trading companies: evidence from GET Baltic

This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Special Issue Innovation in Energy Security and Long-Term Energy Efficiency.

The aim of this research is to distinguish business risks that affect natural gas trading companies operating in the liberalized natural gas market and to assess them according to the potential impact on the aforementioned gas trading companies. To achieve this, a study of international scientific literature and empirical research was conducted, as well as the methods of expert survey, Analytical Hierarchy Process with different measurement scales and logical investigation. The research of the business risks of natural gas trading companies reflected that natural gas trading companies in the liberalized market distinguish in significantly different business risks’ portfolios from those that operate under monopoly conditions. It was also found that it is difficult to evaluate the business risks’ importance for the natural gas trading companies acting in liberalized markets because they characterize in a hierarchical structure, which means that they are prone to cascading effects.