NATO ENSEC COE preparing for the flagship TTX Coherent Resilience 2019

NATO Energy Security Centre of Excellence and the Joint Research Centre (JRC) conducted scenario development workshop of a joint tabletop exercise Coherent Resilience 2019 (CORE19). The Workshop was held in Vilnius, Lithuania and was hosted by AB Amber Grid on March 5-6. The event was welcomed by Mr. Saulius Bilys, CEO of Amber Grid. In his opening speech, Mr. Bilys stressed the importance of Baltic States cooperation on security of gas supply which is always one of the main challenges in the region. Being the national transmission system operator, Amber Grid is the main stakeholder of the exercise and will contribute to the execution of CORE19.

The Workshop in Vilnius was attended by 30 participants from Baltic Sea region countries and their neighbours. The participants represented the main stakeholders: government officials, gas transmission system operators, academia and crisis management experts. During the workshop, a draft of the tabletop exercise scenario was presented to the stakeholders by Core Planning Team. The participants had opportunity to review the scenario and to update it according their needs. The scenario will be completed at the further workshop, when vignettes and injects will be developed by the Core Planning Team together with contribution of the stakeholders. At the end of workshop participants had the opportunity to visit Jauniūnai Gas Compressor Station. Site visit was guided by specialists who explained how gas infrastructure is working and what are its capabilities or limitations.

The CORE19 tabletop exercise is planned to be held in Vilnius, Lithuania on May 14-16 and will constitute as part of the efforts aimed at increasing the resilience of gas supply in the Baltic States by testing the legal framework emergency supply procedures and solidarity measures foreseen by the EU Regulation 2017/1938 on security of gas supply. In addition, the CORE19 tabletop exercise will provide a platform for testing preparedness for cyber-attacks and strategic crisis communication.