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On 1 October 2007, European Energy Exchange AG (EEX) will launch spot trading in natural gas within the market area of E.ON Gastrans-port. At that time, E.ON Gastransport will rezone its current three H-gas market areas into one overall German H-gas market area. Trading in this additional market area will lead to an increase in volumes in short-term exchange trading since the market area of E.ON Gastransport accounts for approximately 45 percent of the German H-gas mar-ket and since spot trading has only covered the BEB market area so far. These two market areas cover in total approximately 60 percent of the German H-gas market volume.
“The launch of trading within the market area of E.ON Gastransport constitutes another milestone in the liberalization of gas trading which is increasingly gaining momentum“, Maik Neubauer, member of the executive board of EEX AG, emphasizes.
So far, 27 trading participants have been licensed for trading in natural gas on the ex-change; further trading participants are now in the process of licensing. On the Spot Market a volume of 103.680 MWh natural gas was traded from 2. July 2007 until 26 September 2007. On the Derivatives Market, the volume traded amounted to 1.008.000 MWh. The open interest, the sum of all open positions, which is also an indi-cator of the trust placed in the market, at the same time, rose to 669.920 MWh. In addition to the Market Makers which are already active in gas trading (EDF Trading Limited, Electrabel S.A, E.ON Ruhrgas AG, RWE Trading GmbH and Vitol S.A.), one further company has now been licensed as a Market Maker: The French company of Gaselys S.A. will also ensure liquidity in the gas market with binding bid and sell offers as of now.
EEX operates a Spot and a Derivatives Market for energy products. With more than 175 trading participants from 19 countries it is the energy exchange in continental Europe which boasts the biggest number of trading participants and the highest turn-over. While coal is only quoted on the Derivatives Market, power, gas and CO2 emis-sion allowances are traded both short-term on the Spot Market and long-term on the Derivatives Market with a time horizon of up to six years into the future. Clearing of ex-change and over-the-counter transactions (OTC clearing) is provided by European Commodity Clearing AG (ECC). ECC is the clearing house of EEX and a subsidiary of the exchange.
