On October 20 in Prague, Czech Republic, the two-day ETCSEE conference began, on the first day of which experts and representatives of the energy community of different levels on energy trading took part. At the conference, more than 45 speakers presented their vision of events on the electricity and gas markets, together with the participants, they discussed the functioning and development prospects of regional markets, as well as the impact of price fluctuations on the market.

The Ukrainian Energy Exchange was represented by development manager Lisse Geert van Vliet. He acted as a speaker at the panel “Gas Market Operations in Eastern Europe and Ukraine”. Lisse Geert van Vliet touched upon the prospects for expanding opportunities for import and export operations, as well as, in general, expanding the presence of foreign companies in Ukraine.

According to him, large foreign traders today are already trading participants in the short, medium and long-term natural gas market. To do this, they need to register an enterprise in Ukraine. Moreover, UEEX is making efforts to expand the opportunities of the Ukrainian market for foreign traders - this is trade in natural gas, which is stored in the customs warehouse mode in underground storage facilities and in the customs warehouse mode with the simultaneous use of the short-haul service.

Lisse Geert van Vliet emphasized the importance of the exchange for building and developing markets, as well as their integration. To this end, UEEX is taking part in the SEEGAS project, which is designed to unite the markets of the countries of Southeast and Eastern Europe for joint gas trading within the same trading space with subsequent integration into the single European gas market.

Answering the questions of NJSC Naftogaz and AXPO Ukraine regarding clearing and liquidity in the wholesale gas market, Lisse replied that there are several ways leading to a solution of this question, and there is no quick decision. He emphasized that the design of the market is correct, but the last thing to do is to have the margin buy and sell price calculated based on the exchange prices of short-term standardized products.

Ukraine annually consumes about 31 billion cubic meters of gas, 21 billion the country produces independently. At the moment, the volumes on the exchange are limited, since in Ukraine there is state regulation of the price of gas for the population, but next year even more opportunities will open up due to the increase in trading volumes, in particular after the start of the GPR program.