The Central European Gas Hub (CEGH), located in Vienna, is already the reference market in Central Eastern Europe (CEE), according to a paper from Powernext, operator of the pan-European gas trading platform PEGAS.
Powernext published the position paper in response to a study initiated by E-Control on the performance of the Austrian gas market and the impact potential market area integrations.
An integration with neighbouring markets like Slovenia, Slovakia and Croatia could further bundle liquidity in CEE and reduce dependency on oil-indexed contracts.
The study on potential market area mergers has been conducted by the independent consultant WECOM. In 2016, the Bundesnetzagentur in Germany launched a similar study on the German gas market working with the same consultant. Both studies are in line with the ACER gas target model II as implemented in 2015, requiring national regulators to evaluate their domestic markets with the aim of realising a well-functioning, competitive gas market in Europe.
CEGH is the leading hub for gas trading in the Central and Eastern European region (CEE). Since 2016, the CEGH Gas Exchange spot and futures contracts are integrated into the PEGAS platform. CEGH acts as an important market facilitator in the region as well as a gateway for trading between Eastern and Western Europe.
PEGAS supports the integration of Central Eastern market zones, such as Slovenia, Slovakia and Croatia, which currently suffer from a lack of liquidity.
“Merging those market zones with the Austrian market could help decouple Central Eastern European market areas further from predominating oil-index pricing in the region and increase liquidity,” says Egbert Laege (pictured), CEO of Powernext.
Concerning more mature and liquid market zones, such as Germany and Italy, PEGAS is convinced that market integration will not add significant value despite the high costs required for such projects. Powernext raised similar arguments, when an integration of German hubs with the Dutch TTF was discussed last year. 

