EU’s First Joint Gas Buying To Happen Before Summer: Sefcovic

EU joint purchases will get underway “well before” the summer to help fill up the bloc’s storage sites, according to EU vice president Maros Sefcovic.

• EU energy ministers agreed that gas companies and companies consuming gas in EU and the Energy Community countries will submit their gas import needs. The EU will hire a service provider to calculate the aggregated demand and seek for offers on the global markets to meet the total demand.
• Member States will require domestic undertakings to use the service provider to aggregate demand for volumes of gas equivalent to 15% of their respective gas storage filling obligations for 2023 (around 13.5bcm for the EU as a whole). Beyond the 15%, aggregation will be voluntary but based on the same mechanism.
• In a second step, gas companies and companies consuming gas may choose to purchase gas through the platform, individually or in a consortium with others, from natural gas producers or suppliers that have matched the aggregated demand.