Gas market: First trade at Link4Hubs

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Published on 25 January 2011 12.30

Gas market: First trade at Link4Hubs

25 January 2011 marked the day when the first shipper booked capacity and transport of natural gas from one country to another via the Link4Hubs platform.

The platform is operated by Energinet.dk in Denmark, Gas Transport Services in the Netherlands, and Gasunie Deutschland in Germany.

The customer has bought a so-called bundled product - a package solution au-tomatically linking the purchase of capacity out of Germany and into Denmark. According to Mr Torben Brabo, Vice President, Gas Market, Energinet.dk, there are three main reasons why the trade is carried out at this particular point in time.

- One of the reasons is that by using Link4Hubs, the customer is sure to receive firm capacity, he says. - Link4Hubs trading has been developed precisely with a view to loosening up for physical cross-border congestion as it operates with virtual routes.

German tariff reduction
- The second reason is that Tuesday, 25 January 2011 is the first day when shippers can utilise the reduction in German tariffs, Mr Brabo continues. - In early 2011, the German transmission system operator, Gasunie Deutschland, reduced the tariffs on its monthly and daily products, and this has affected the overall Link4Hubs price mechanism.

The third reason for using Link4Hubs is, according to Mr Brabo, that some days the price differences on the gas exchanges between the Dutch, German and Danish gas markets are so large that it becomes profitable to purchase the ser-vice and pocket the short-term gain (arbitrage).

Need of more regional products
- Energinet.dk is pleased that Link4Hubs has now been used for the very first time, and we believe that the gas market will be in need of additional regional products. This is precisely the reason why we introduced the possibility in col-laboration with our German and Dutch partners, Mr Brabo adds.

Mr Brabo expects Link4Hubs and any future regional products to become impor-tant tools for commercial gas trading and that Energinet.dk will therefore place great emphasis on voluntary regional cooperation.

The aim is to facilitate cross-border gas trading
Link4Hubs was launched on 1 July 2010 for the purpose of making cross-border gas trading easier and more flexible for the shippers. The three transmission system operators behind Link4Hubs are Energinet.dk in Denmark, Gas Transport Services in the Netherlands, and Gasunie Deutschland in Germany.