Trade and acquisition
Drastic changes currently emerge in the energy trade: a development from the mere bargain of physically provided energy or primary energy carriers to the trade of sometimes complex products that originate from the financial sector can be discovered. Liberalising tendencies in the power and gas market cause slow-developing new market structures with related trade instruments. Absolutely new market elements like the politically forced Europe-wide trade with CO2-Certificates or new market structures like trade platforms for energy and energy carriers in the internet evolve in addition.
A change of acquisition options and strategies is connected to the shifts within the energy trade: Next to traditional forms of acquisition like the OTC-trade, the purchase at the stock market and the acquisition via online platforms increase gradually. With new acquisition options risk management is diversified. It becomes more and more flexible and encompasses a stronger integration of the particular risk management instruments.
AGrowing sales figures at stock markets and within the OTC trade reflect the increasing acceptance of the power trade in the power market. The incipient dynamic depends strongly - next to legal specifications - on a growing consciousness of risks by the stakeholders, which gradually distance themselves from full-supply contracts and enter into structured acquisition. New instruments like clearing offers by stock markets in the forward trading sector and financial hedging at the OTC forward market set new impulses and render the acquisition more and more flexible.
Impulses by the beginning market liberalisation can be detected for the gas market as well: The cooperation contract regarding the gas grid access signed by the BGW and the VKU shall enable a higher transparency and a simplification of grid access and will cause shifts in the acquisition options as well as an altered risk management through the means of a simplifying of the change of supplier.
As a new influencing factor the emerging trade of emission certificates gradually gains importance for the energy trade: Because of allocation problems, lack of experience of the new trade element and the uncertainty of the political framework for future allocation periods, the market developed in a volatile way so far and therefore complicated the planning and incorporating of adequate acquisition strategies.
Apart from emission certificates and power, the energy carrier coal is recently traded at the stock market. Even if the stock market trade is still in its infancy, as the rather low sales figures indicate, coal becomes more and more important at the hands of liberalising markets, the expanding energy demand in countries like China and India as well as the expected modifications in the power plant fleet.
The acquisition structures essentially change here as well: While coal was imported to the German market primarily from South Africa and Poland 15 years ago, coal importers nowadays have a much broader variety of acquisition markets to choose from. Especially Columbia, Australia and the former Soviet Union appear in this context. Additionally, spots and future trades gain importance next to long-term contracts.
Altogether, further drastic modifications of structures and instruments of trade can be expected in the future. The power plant construction boom, new emporia like the EEX in Leipzig and a further internationalisation of the energy markets will contribute to this.
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