The Romanian Commodity Exchange announces the conclusion of the first transaction on its new trading platform – “Gas Forward CCP”, based on a standard contract for a one week period. The new platform allows the conclusion of medium-term contracts (week and month), with RCE fulfilling the function of central counterparty for the completion of transactions, besides managing the trading platform.
This means that, following a double subjective novation operation, each purchase-sale contract between two market participants turns into two new contracts, in which both the initial seller and buyer have the same counterparty. Thus, contracts become perfectly fungible and the counterparty risk is eliminated.
The platform was launched at the end of June, and in July registrations of participants in the market, testing and training users on the operating regimes of the platform were completed.
The main advantages of this platform are the guarantee of the transaction, both for the seller and for the buyer, plus the , up to five times reduction of the level of bank guarantees mandatory for the parties. The complex working system with the operationalization of three safety margins (initial, variation and delivery), allows the operation of a modern and integrated trading and post-trading environment; with RCE being the guarantor of the concluded transactions. In order to ensure a safe operation in this market, the Romanian Commodity Exchange also makes available a guarantee fund currently supplied at a level of 1.5 million euros.
The Romanian Commodities Exchange estimates that, during the third quarter of the year, the number of participants and transactions on this new market will increase significantly. Starting with the fourth quarter, once the participants are familiarized with this new instrument, RCE will also introduce long-term contracts (quarter, semester and year).
According to RCE, the launch of the new natural gas forward market, with physical delivery and with a central counterparty “can be considered as a major event in the development of the energy exchange activity in Romania, which can connect the country to the most advanced development trends in the field from within the EU ”.