ICIS Launches Gas Price Assessments for Virtual Belgian Hub

ICIS, the European benchmark provider for the gas markets has announced the launch of five daily price assessments for the new virtual Belgian hub, the Zeebrugge Trading Point (ZTP).

The additional pricing information has been developed in response to the launch of Belgium’s new transmission model and gas trading platform, the ZTP.

This new model will simplify access to the Belgian network, implementing decoupled entry/exit bookings of transport capacity and reducing transmission costs. In addition, the new virtual trading point will provide benefits to market participants without transport capacity, particularly financial institutions.

Following an extensive market consultation over the summer, ICIS is launching five price assessments for the Zeebrugge Trading Point to its European spot gas pricing coverage. The prices include Day-ahead, Weekend, Front-month, Front-quarter and Front-season contracts, providing users with a set of new pricing information that will support their daily trading and negotiations.

ICIS will continue to publish prices and indices at the physical Zeebrugge, or ZeeBeach hub.

The new coverage is part of ICIS’s European Spot Gas Markets report, which provides daily gas benchmarks to the European spot gas trading arena.

“We’ve worked closely with the market to understand how we should cover this new virtual hub. We expect trade to focus on near-term contracts early on but it could quickly spread,” said Ed Cox, editor of European Spot Gas Markets.

ICIS will monitor the new virtual market closely in the coming months and will continue to add additional, relevant assessments when liquidity picks up.

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LNG World News Staff, October 01, 2012; Image: Fluxys