The Hellenic Gas Transmission System Operator (DESFA) and the Athens Exchange Group (ATHEX GROUP) took the next step in their collaboration, by signing a contract for the implementation of the Balancing Platform.
This constitutes the first of the steps outlined in the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between the two companies on the 14th of September 2017.
The Balancing Platform, which is being developed through the close cooperation and joining of the know-how and infrastructure of both DESFA and the Athens Stock Exchange, will allow DESFA to buy and sell through auctions the gas quantities required for the balancing of the Greek National Natural Gas System. Its operation is expected to increase liquidity in the gas market and help form a reference gas price on a daily basis, based on the prevailing demand and supply conditions.
The ultimate goal is to create a competitive gas market, which will result in optimised supply conditions, including prices, to the benefit of the end consumer. Development of the Balancing Platform is the first step in a series of actions that aim towards the development of the Greek natural gas wholesale market and its subsequent expansion to South-Eastern Europe towards creating a regional gas hub.
In implementation of the 4th revision of the Administration Code of the Greek National Natural Gas System approved by the Regulatory Authority for Energy (RAE) in early March 2018, the launch of the Balancing Platform, as well as the new provisions with regard to the transactions on the Greek National Natural Gas System, are scheduled for the 1st of July 2018.
Sotirios Nikas, Chairman of the BoD and CEO of DESFA, signed the contract on the company's behalf and noted: "The launch of the Balancing Platform is a development of critical importance for a more flexible, liquidated and competitive market, useful to both the participants and the end consumer. We are particularly pleased with the first tangible results of our close cooperation with the ATHEX Group, and greatly optimistic for its dynamic continuation".
The CEO of the Athens Exchange Group, Mr. Sokratis Lazaridis, at the signing of the contract underlined: "Today's event signals the effective utilisation of the country's capital market infrastructures towards the automation of new price-setting mechanisms, which are gradually being introduced at a European-wide level in the energy sector. This is in a fact a trend gaining ground globally. For the Athens Exchange Group - which has made significant investments over the past twenty years in electronic capital market infrastructures and has accumulated competitive know-how - the trust of DESFA in the first steps of the electronic organisation of the Greek natural gas market is a great honour. Even though the original cooperation concerns the first and smallest of the planned markets (Balancing Platform), its value is quite high both towards deepening and expanding the relevant know-how and for solidifying the trust in the effective development of infrastructures for the energy markets of Greece".
