New OTC platform to be launched in Romania

Romanian energy regulator ANRE has now agreed to launch an over-the-counter (OTC) centralised platform for electricity trading, it confirmed on Thursday.

ANRE approved the regulation on the new market for bilateral energy contracts at a regulating committee on 12 July. The document will be published in the official monitor, ANRE told ICIS, but did not say when.

The new market structure follows a proposal earlier sent to ANRE by a council made up of government officials and industry stakeholders – the consultative council (see EDEM 10 July 2013).

After several meetings between ANRE, Romanian power exchange OPCOM and the Association of Energy (AFEER), the regulator agreed to the proposed version for OTC platform, due to be in operation in January 2014, AFEER said in an e-mail sent to traders and seen by ICIS.

A source from ANRE said: “We first need to approve the method of trading on the centralised market, while OPCOM needs to prepare for the administration of this market.”

According to the ANRE source, the committee suggested using not only the standard contract set by the European Federation of Energy Traders (EFET), but also private types of contract for a six month transaction period.

Products traded on the platform will have standardised volumes, delivery times and contract types, like for instance baseload and peakload.

Traders will be able to list the counterparties they wish to trade with, while deals can to be cancelled 10 minutes after they have been settled if both parties agree.

The offered price can be changed after it is put online.

ANRE also proposed making trading transparency by publishing the price and volume traded. If a price is 10% higher than the previous transaction on the same curve contract, then full details of the trade will be published.

ANRE previously suggested that all trading contracts would be published, but traders active on the Romanian market expressed their concerns regarding this change to the initial proposal.

According to the email sent to traders, the regulator agreed to a compromise, so that the contracts are to be sent to ANRE instead. However this has not been confirmed by ANRE. Sophie Udubasceanu