In the meeting of the Exchange Council in Paris on 8 September chaired by Dr. Günther Rabensteiner EEX presented the natural gas index scheduled to be introduced in 2011. Managing Director Exchange Oliver Maibaum explained the method for the calculation of the gas index to the members of the Exchange Council. The index will be based on the front month contracts on the Natural Gas Derivatives Market. All trade transactions concluded on EEX in the respective current front month contracts for natural gas deliveries in the GASPOOL and NCG market areas will form the basis for the calculation of the index. The members of the Exchange Council welcome the plans for the gas index since it has the potential to replace oil prices and other external indices in gas supply contracts and establishing the EEX gas prices as reference prices. Moreover, the connection of the price to a transparent, exchange-based gas index contributes to increasing the confidence which the consumers place in pricing by the gas business companies. On the occasion of her visit to EEX on 19 August 2010, Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel also advocated the establishment of a gas index on the basis of the market prices of the exchange, which would further support decoupling of gas prices from the oil price. Details regarding the publication and the launch date will be announced by EEX in the fourth quarter of 2010.
Following on from the meeting of the EPEX Exchange Council, which took place on 7 September, the participants in the meeting were informed of changes in the admission procedure on EEX and EPEX Spot. As the head of the EEX Market Surveillance Dr Wolfgang von Rintelen explained EEX and EPEX Spot will introduce a joint “scoring model”. This model is based on objective criteria for the admission of trading participants registering for trading on the exchange. With the help of this model the question of whether there are characteristics suggesting that a participant might abuse exchange trading and the settlement of such for the purpose of sales tax fraud is investigated in the course of the admission procedure. Through this stricter admission procedure the exchange makes a further contribution to the fight against sales tax fraud and money laundering.
Furthermore, EEX informed the Exchange Council of a new service for trading in options on Power Futures (Phelix Options). EEX provides an optional automatic exercising function for all Phelix Options. The parameters of the settlement function can be set individually and the trading participants can still choose between manual and automatic exercising on the day of exercising. By means of this EEX ensures that all options, which are “in the money”, are exercised automatically unless the trading participant concerned has specifically selected manual settlement. The Exchange Council approved the amendment of the rules and regulations.
The Exchange Council of EEX is an official body of the exchange under the German Exchange Act. In total it consists of 24 members who adequately represent the various interest groups and business circles: In addition to the trading participants with 19 elected members from various sectors (transmission system operators and power trading companies, municipal utilities and regional suppliers, brokers and financial service providers as well as commercial consumers), four representatives from associations and one investors’ representative are members of the exchange. The tasks of the Exchange Council include, in particular, the adoption of the rules and regulations of the exchange. Moreover, its tasks comprise the appointment and supervision of the Management Board of the Exchange and the appointment of the head of the Market Surveillance Office.