Bucharest / Budapest, 8 September 2017. – BRM gas forward contracts with central clearing services will be launched later this year by receiving final green light from the respective authorities. Therefore, the onboarding of clients and utilization of the new trading facility is ready to start. Romanian Commodities Exchange (Bursa Romana de Marfuri, “BRM”) and KELER CCP together reached a significant milestone by completing successfully the IT development and test phase of the project.
The market operator BRM and the clearing solution provider KELER CCP together have completed the IT specification, implementation and a strict test phase of the project during the past months. For now, both the trading and clearing systems are ready and well-prepared to open their doors to the participants for end-to-end market tests. The new clearing service will provide more efficient and safe operation for the participants by reducing credit and market risk.
“KELER CCP, the first EMIR compliant clearing house in the region, is excited to showcase its knowledge and experience through successful system launch and operation. It was an adventurous journey to shape our services for the BRM Forward Gas Market, but we are ready and I am confident that this will be a huge step forward for BRM and the Romanian market.” – added Károly Mátrai, CEO of KELER CCP.
The launch of the new BRM Forward Gas Market with the clearing solution provided by KELER CCP will foster the development of a competitive, transparent and reliable gas market for Romania operating on a non-discriminatory basis and boosting natural gas trading in the entire region on the long-run.
“Our overall strategic goal is to make our market place more attractive by creating a secure and standardized trading system, which is very close to hand now. During the test period we monitored our clients’ needs and the demand of the market and fine tuned with KELER CCP. The new system will enable BRM to set up a modern, highly developed, Europe focused market environment.” – said Gabriel Purice, President General Director of BRM.
Market participants were involved at a very early stage of the project especially in specifying the standardized products. Based on the several workshop and the feedback received, market players are now excited to start trading on the new platform very soon.
“We are convinced that the new gas forward products will provide a higher degree of safety to our trades” – Iulian Burcea, AMROMCO;
“In our opinion, the new clearing services provided by the central counterparty will improve the trading environment on the Romanian natural gas market"– Ion Ionut, ENGIE;
“Through the new products and services, the local gas market aligns with the European standards” – Viorel Tepes, TINMAR;
“We appreciate BRM’s efforts for continuous improvement of the product range on the natural gas market” – Mihai Vilt, FORTE GAZ;
“We have been taking part in the product development of the market from the beginning, and we salute the benefits of the new BRM products with clearing services included ” – VITOL GAS & POWER.
During September and October the training and onboarding of market participants will be completed so that the trading operations of CCP cleared forward gas contracts could start in November.
About BRM:
Founded in 1992, BRM is the only exchange in Romania focused on commodity and commodity-derived products. In recent years, it has achieved a dramatic expansion of its product range, while developing new and innovative services in line with European best practices. In 2013, BRM successfully launched a natural gas exchange platform, in addition to its core business in petroleum products, energy (retail) and other fungible goods. It has become a key partner for the Romanian Government and major market players in the cereal trading sector, being appointed in 2016 as Administrator of the Central Register for Warehouse Receipts. It is currently in the process of developing a Multilateral Trading Facility (MTF) that will enable it to offer commodity-based futures contracts to market participants from 2018.
About KELER CCP:
KELER CCP is the central clearing house for capital and natural gas markets in Hungary. In its capacity as the central counterparty KELER CCP assumes clearing as well as financial and physical settlement of transactions concluded on the capital markets: Budapest Stock Exchange, BÉT a Market and MTS Hungary, and on the natural gas markets: Trading Platform and CEEGEX Central Eastern European Gas Exchange. Further to its central clearing services, as a unique service provider in Europe, KELER CCP provides general clearing membership services for its clients on several energy markets including HUPX Hungarian Power Exchange, EEX, EPEX SPOT, EPEX SPOT Belgium, SEEPEX, PXE and Powernext.