ANRE has launched in public debate a draft Order [HERE in Romanian] on the obligation to supply natural gas on centralized markets. The regulator starts from the premise that the “natural gas market in Romania has a low liquidity” and tries to achieve simultaneously three objectives: increasing market liquidity, increasing the degree of transparency of transactions on all segments of the centralized natural gas market and ensuring effective access to market to all market players, including new entrants, through non-discriminatory balancing mechanisms that reflect the costs. “Although in the centralized markets of natural gas, the obligation to trade a certain percentage of the quantities of natural gas sold or bought, according to the provisions of art. 177 of the Law on electricity and natural gas no. 123/2012, with the subsequent modifications and completions, due to the unequal bidding during the reference period, the desired liquidity degree could not be obtained, which is why, within this project, both the constant and uniform bidding during the period were provided, as well as a level minimum of the offer to meet all potential buyers,” writes ANRE.

“The obligations that currently exist in the legislation have not reached their goal,” ANRE vice-president Zoltan Nagy-Bege said few weeks ago. “The purpose was to generate liquidity, but this did not happen. The large two producers [OMV Petrom and Romgaz] preferred to offer large packages, which only the two big suppliers who dominate the market [ENGIE and E.ON] had access to. These two big producers brought out two or three big packages, in the Autumn; usually they traded 50% through two or three contracts, and then they did not sell on the market”, explained Bege in a conference organized by Financial Intelligence.

Thus, the proposed measures target the big producers, Romgaz and OMV Petrom; an obligation is proposed that every year between 2020-2023, the 30% quota that the producers have the obligation to offer for sale will be distributed on two segments of the centralized market, namely “Standardized short-term products market” and ” Standardized medium and long term products market”. The bidding precise obligations will be established by ANRE, and in the case of standardized products in the medium and long term, the size of the lot offered may not exceed 50 MWh per lot. Subsidiaries and / or affiliates to the same economic interest group will not be allowed to participate in the transaction.