The high cost of energy, and its impact on businesses and households, is a topic of recurring concern at European summits, the last one at the end of May. Precisely to dispel this concern only a few years ago, precisely in 2009, an important process of reform of the gas markets was launched thanks to the approval of the Third Energy Package.
The goal was to complete the liberalization process by removing the barriers that prevent the development of liquid and competitive markets, improving the degree of interconnection of the various hub networks and the interoperability of European transport networks to finally achieve a gradual lowering of gas prices for final consumers.
Il Gas Target Model, defined by the European regulators, introduced a new market model that would have upset the dynamics to which Europe had become accustomed. A revolutionary project that envisaged the creation of a gas market divided into market areas free from internal congestion, with sufficient dimensions, an adequate plurality of sources and interconnected to the others through a system of auctions for capacity. The concrete implementation of the European project passed through the transposition into the national laws of the Network Code, which would have defined new rules and adequate flexibility instruments to allow, by introducing them into the market, supplies at the best conditions practiced in the various markets (hub) European.
At first, despite the ambitious reform project, it seemed difficult to imagine being able to undermine the rigidity of the current structure of the European gas market, mainly based on long-term contracts.
Today, however, the European view on the model target for the future European gas market is slowly becoming a reality. This is confirmed by the consultation document published on 20 June by the Electricity and Gas Authority (AEEG), which illustrates the Authority's guidelines in relation to the revision and integration of the criteria for accessing the transport service at the points of entry interconnected with foreign countries, functional to the transposition of the “Network Code on Capacity Allocation Mechanisms in Gas Transmission Systems” (CAM Code) and the European provisions on the management of contractual congestion (CMP Regulation).
The AEEG is ready to take the first steps of the European reform by envisaging: both a direct transposition within the ambit of national regulation of the new community provisions characterized by a high degree of detail and the definition of the implementation methods for those regulatory provisions which, instead, require a discretionary assessment by the National Regulatory Authority. The CMP Regulation and the CAM Code, whose entry into force is expected on 1 October 2013 and 1 November 2015 respectively, will radically modify the existing regulatory framework by introducing a series of new elements.
Among the main changes, the introduction of procedures market based for the allocation of transportation capacity, the creation of capacity products bundled (which provide for the joint offer of capacity in exit from a specific market area and in entry in the adjacent market area, effectively allowing a direct exchange between hub), bidding through auctions Online transparent and non-discriminatory of all existing firm capacity in one perspective short term, and the procedures of congestion management, such as for example the release of systematically underused contractual capacity (so-called use it or lose it).
These are just some of the highlights of the community reform, but they suggest how the "rules of the game" are really changing. Competitive allocations of capacity and the shift in trading towards short-term time horizons will lead to a profound change in the current balance between importers and producers, designing an internal natural gas market which, in some respects, seems to follow the path of the electricity market. Furthermore, the idea of maximizing the level of use of transport capacity, freeing the interconnections between national transport systems from contractual congestion, should eliminate one of the main obstacles to the process of market integration and favor access to supply sources competitors.
Relying on market mechanisms is, in any case, a risk-free choice. All these innovations, in fact, occur in a period in which the European gas market is characterized by significant changes which see the price hub significantly decrease compared to the values of gas indexed to oil and its derivatives, making the sustainability of supply contracts with clauses increasingly critical take-or-pay. These commit the purchaser to withdraw a minimum amount of the annual contractual volume or to pay it in any case in part.
One of the main doubts is that the new market regulation structure, oriented towards short-term contracts, could be to the detriment of infrastructure investments and long-term contracts as tools to guarantee the security of supplies. Furthermore, the necessary modification of the transport contracts would generate an increased risk of non-fulfilment of the collection and delivery commitments linked to the take-or-pay, with probable economic and financial impacts for subscribers.
While on the one hand the ambitious Community project aims to guarantee the complete liberalization and integration of the European gas markets over the next few years, on the other hand it raises quite a few questions that Europe, and the national regulatory authorities, must be taken into due consideration.
