Implementation of IT systems for the natural gas market

Liberalization of the gas market in the Republic of Croatia, preconditioned by the EU energy regulations, brought a number of challenges for the participants of the gas market who had to adjust to new operational mode and business dynamic environment. The adoption of new legislation related to the natural gas market created the business necessity for implementation of information system that provides support for new business processes and high quality integration with existing internal and external systems. In most cases primary motivation of information system introduction is reduction of costs that directly affect business, that include gas purchase, gas storage and transportation costs, costs of contractual penalties and balancing energy, etc. Taking into account that there is no adequate of-the-shelve product on the market that could satisfy all the business needs of individual gas market participant, the biggest challenge for IT system introduction concerns user requirements analysis and the correct interpretation of the new energy and gas legislation. Ultimately, all of this would not be possible without the correct implementation of the project management methodology, combined with strong support of end users and their management. The existing experience and lessons learned make it possible to focus future attention towards the implementation of a central information system for ease of maintenance and upgrades, processing capabilities of all business information in real time, and standardization and typing data exchanged between individual market participants.