In the meeting of the Exchange Council chaired by Dr. Günther Rabensteiner in Vienna on 3 December 2009 the products planned by EEX formed the focus of the discussion. In addition to the expansion of the Phelix product family with off-peak and week futures, EEX is also planning to expand the tradeable products on its natural gas market.
At the moment, natural gas contracts regarding a constant output of 1 MW can be traded on the Spot Market for the next day during the period from 06:00am of a given delivery day until 06:00am of the following day. The so-called Within-Day contract enables the trading participants to take part in intraday trading in natural gas for the delivery day. In this process, the quantity to be delivered decreases on an hourly basis depending on the time of the conclusion of the transaction. The Exchange Council welcomes the introduction of the Within-Day Gas contract as a further step for the integration of trading in system balancing energy on the exchange. Gas quantities of system balancing energy have already been sold through the EEX Spot Market since October 2009. The considerable increase in the volume shows the existing potential in the system balancing energy market. The Within-Day Gas products are to be offered in both the NCG H-Gas and the Gaspool H-Gas market areas.
The following roadmap for the launch of new products was presented by the Management Board of the Exchange:
- Phelix Week Futures – 1st quarter 2010
- Within-Day Gas – 1st quarter 2010
- Phelix Off-Peak Futures – 2nd quarter 2010
Furthermore, the Exchange Council congratulated EEX on winning the contract for the EUA primary market auction. At the end of October EEX was awarded the contract for the regular primary market auctions of EU Allowances beginning in January 2010 by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety.
The Management Board of the Exchange presented the scope and design of the primary market auction to the Exchange Council: 300,000 allowances will be auctioned off per week (on Tuesdays) on the Spot Market from January until October and 570,000 allowances will be auctioned off per week (on Wednesdays) on the Derivatives Market in the Mid-December contract for the current year. The remaining quantities will be auctioned off in spot contracts in November and December.
The first auction will take place on the Spot Market on 5 January 2010, while the first auction on the Derivatives Market will take place on 6 January 2010. All auction dates are laid down in the auction calendar, which will be published soon on the internet site of EEX. The Exchange Council approved the modifications of the rules and regulations and the contract specifications for the introduction of the primary market auction.
The presentation of the new transparency platform for generation and consumption data, www.transparency.eex.com, which was launched on 30 October 2009, constituted a further item on the agenda of the meeting. The platform is the result of intense cooperation between EEX, the four German transmission system operators (TSOs) Amprion GmbH, EnBW Transportnetze AG, transpower stromübertragungs mbh and Vattenfall Europe Transmission GmbH, individual power plant operators and the associations BDEW [German Association of Energy and Water Industries], VIK [Association of the Industrial Energy and Power Industry] and VKU [Association of Local Utilities]. The Exchange Council praises the platform on which statutory publication requirements and the practice of voluntary publication are integrated for the first time as an important milestone and role model for other regions in Europe and calls upon all power plant operators and industrial consumers that are not yet reporting to help make the new transparency platform a success through the submission of data.
Moreover, the Exchange Council elected Mr. Charles Rankin, Managing Director Morgan Stanley, as a further representative of the group of the financial institutions to the Exchange Council, which is, hence, fully staffed.
The Exchange Council is a body of the exchange according to the German Exchange Act. It comprises a total of 24 members adequately representing the various interest groups and business circles: In addition to the trading participants with a total of 19 members elected from within various groups (interconnected utilities and trading companies, municipal and regional suppliers, brokers and financial service providers as well as commercial consumers), four representatives of associations and one investors’ representative are members of the Exchange Council. The Exchange Council primarily adopts the rules and regulations of the exchange and the amendments thereto. Furthermore, it appoints and monitors the Management Board of the Exchange and appoints the head of Market Surveillance.