Romania trading license plan will not restrict suppliers’ actions

Romania license plan will not restrict suppliers

New proposals issued by Romania’s energy regulator will not restrict electricity suppliers from entering into cross-border import and export transactions, a source with knowledge of the matter told ICIS on Wednesday.

The confirmation should go some way to clarifying the intentions of regulator ANRE, which were under the market’s microscope on Wednesday in the wake of the proposal being published.

The rules will govern the handing out of trading licenses in the country.

ANRE oversees issuance of a type of licence that allows participants to carry out import or export transactions as well as undertaking trading activity on the platforms operated by state-owned OCPOM.

According to the new rules, a company can hold either a trading licence or a supplier licence. And contrary to what some participants understood, the new rules merely differentiate between the status of a supplier and a trader, the source with knowledge of the matter confirmed.

He said a supplier will hold the right to supply electricity to end users as well as all the rights allocated to a trader. “After the general rules come into force, any holder of a supply licence can switch to a trading licence,” he said.

However the holder of a trading licence will not have the right to deliver to end users. This exempts the trading licence holder from additional paperwork that would come with the supplier licence.

ANRE was unavailable for official comment at the time of writing.

Confusion

Initially, some traders said new the rules appeared to ban electricity suppliers from taking part in import and export operations, because such licences were only given out 
to traders.

Some market participants said that, if approved, the regulations would “kill companies with end users”.

In such a case, suppliers would have had to split into two entities to continue to carry out trading operations outside of Romania’s borders, which would have had repercussions for long-term contracts that had already 
been signed.

The documents are up for public consultation. Energy authorities in Romania came under fire in the past, with most traders voicing concerns over swift changes in regulation.

The government implemented a ban on trading outside market operator OPCOM in September 2012.

Then in 2014, after several positive 
developments such as the launch of the 
OTC platform and the scrap of the export 
tariff, the government banned all non-standard contracts on OPCOM’s forward tra-
ding platforms.

This prohibited any flexibility element 
in contracts, posing difficulties for green energy producers in particular which 
are heavily exposed to variations in their delivery schedules.

Sophie Udubasceanu