Tom Welch

Tom is widely acknowledged as a leading industry expert on gas storage. He represented Centrica's storage interests for many years where he was responsible for storage planning, booking and utilisation. Tom was deeply involved when Centrica purchased the Rough Storage facility in 2002. He took over the position of Head of Sales & Marketing at Centrica Storage Limited until his retirement in April 2005, a period during which there was a threefold rise in the value of the Rough storage service. Since that time, as an associate of TPA Solutions, Tom has provided commercial and regulatory advice to new storage projects in the UK and the Republic of Ireland.

Tom has been deeply involved in third-party transportation in the UK since the conception of the Network Code. In the mid 1990's in his role as Transportation Manager for what was then the 'Public Gas Supply' (or residential supply) division of British Gas, Tom was responsible for ensuring that the Code 'worked' in practical and commercial terms from the viewpoint of the domestic supplier; this involved representing PGS at formative sessions of Transco's Network Code.

Ever since the separation of supply from transport in the UK, Tom has had specific responsibility for gas storage planning, appraisals and capacity bookings, first for PGS then for Centrica.

Tom's career in the UK gas industry has spanned 36 years. He joined as an economist in the OR department and progressed through a variety of planning and engineering roles.

Tom is a founder member of Gas Storage Europe, previously the European Gas Storage Operators Group, and briefly Vice-President until retirement.