Reforms of gas industry of Great Britain in the 1980s - the first half of the 1990s

Economic reforms of M. Thatcher were aimed at permanent weakening of direct participation of the authorities in economic activity of the country. The new course for privatization of the large state companies and formation on their basis independent corporations was taken, which could work effectively in the conditions of new economic reality. In the early 1980s, the British government started transformations of gas industry. At the first stage, the authorities privatized the capacities of the state monopoly «British Gas», pushing the domestic market to create a competitive environment. The next step was the unbundling of the company into independent functional units, which allowed the segmentation of the UK gas industry and made it more flexible and receptive to market changes.