The European Union Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) released today some preliminary findings of the Gas Wholesale volume of its flagship report, the Market Monitoring Report, expected at the end of September 2020.
According to the assessment, the legacy gas transportation contracts in place at the end of 2019 will almost all expire in the next ten years.
The release of expired legacy capacity in the market will make new bookings more reliant on actual market conditions than in the past.
The market analysis for gas transportation capacity also shows that since the implementation of the Capacity Allocation Mechanisms Network Code:
- The market trend is to book shorter-term capacity products (up to one-year ahead) in order to pursue as much flexibility as possible, while avoiding lock-in effects. This is possible since capacity hoarding through long-term contracts has become more difficult.
- New (shorter-term) capacity contracts have a lower degree of concentration compared to legacy capacity contracts.
- New long-term capacity contracts are concentrated in a few, and relatively big, interconnection points (mainly related to the Nord Stream pipelines and to the routes for further transport from there).
The analysis’ underlying data is accessible at the Market Monitoring Report web data portal CHEST.
Among the many relevant topics, the Market Monitoring Report will disclose more results on the impact of the implementation of the Gas Network Codes and Framework Guidelines on the market.
