The EU has chosen a firm to manage the joint procurement of natural gas. According to several media outlets, the PRISMA European Capacity Platform GmbH has won the tenders for the job.
According to several media outlets including the Pipeline World, Neftegaz, and Eurativ, on 19 December 2022, EU energy ministers agreed to create the demand aggregation and joint purchasing of gas platform. The decision to appoint PRISMA for this purpose was taken on 25 January 2023.
The reports said that the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, explained: “By making joint purchasing of gas a reality, we will use the EU’s economic and political weight to secure more supplies for our citizens and industry.”
The EU member states and the Energy Community contracting parties will use the platform to aggregate demand for volumes of gas equivalent to 15% of their respective gas storage filling obligations for 2023. Beyond this 15%, the aggregation of demand will be voluntary.
PRISMA’s Managing Director, Götz Lincke, told the media that in these turbulent times, this project comes with great responsibility.
The EU hopes to conclude the first joint purchasing contract by the summer of this year.
Meanwhile, Neftegaz reports that Enmacc, a rival of Prisma objects to the deal and says that it is not in compliance with the current EU legislation.
Some major companies are reportedly reluctant to join the mechanism because they are not sure that the joint purchasing will lead to any lowering of the prices.
The joint purchasing will follow the guidelines agreed to in November 2022. Here are the main points:
- The mechanism will aggregate the requirements for non-Russian gas
- The gas companies of the EU countries will use the service provider (Prisma) to purchase gas volumes equivalent to 15% of their 2023 UGS filling obligations, i.e. about 13.5 billion m 3 for the EU as a whole
- Beyond this 15% aggregation will be voluntary, but based on the same mechanism
- The gas companies and gas consuming companies can buy gas through the platform individually or as part of a consortium from natural gas producers or suppliers
- The companies are obliged to notify the EC and EU countries in advance if they plan to purchase more than 5 TWh/year (slightly more than 500 million m 3 of gas)
- Russian gas will be excluded from joint purchases /// nCa, 1 February 2023