
The Competition Council recommended that NAER approve the terms of use of the natural gas trading platform operated by BRM East Energy.
The Competition Council considered a draft resolution on the creation of an electronic platform for natural gas trading. The platform will be operated by BRM East Energy for 3 years. The Competition Council has expressed concern that this entity will have a dominant position in this area of natural gas operations, accordingly, BRM East Energy will have a special responsibility for operating in this market in accordance with the rules of free competition and the obligation not to allow the use its economic potential to the detriment of customers and, ultimately, to the detriment of consumers. In order to ensure the predictability of the rules for trading in the natural gas market, as well as the costs of intermediary services for operations on this platform, the Competition Council considers that NAER should approve the natural gas trading platform operated by BRM East Energy, simultaneously with the conditions applicable to this platform. Recall, on March 4, NAER received a request from Moldovatransgaz for the approval of a natural gas trading platform operated by BRM East Energy, which is a division of the Romanian Commodity Exchange with more than 10 years of experience in the Romanian natural gas market. The company acts as an integrated operator for all markets: spot, forward, futures, balancing. BRM has been managing the Romanian balancing market on behalf of the National Natural Gas Transportation Company Transgaz since 2019, providing a high-performance balancing platform highly regarded by market participants. It is planned that BRM East Energy will use a dedicated IT platform provided by BRM for use on the basis of a license agreement. The Rules for trading on BRM platforms were also presented for two markets where it is planned to work on the Moldovan market: the spot market (the next day market and the intraday market) and the market for standardized products in the medium and long term. The amount of the commission for access to the trading platform for users of the system in Moldova in 2022-2024 will amount to 0.010 Moldovan lei from each MWh sold. // 01.04.2022 — InfoMarket