Following a record result in the business year 2016, EEX Group has published its half year volumes for 2017, achieving notable increases in the markets for emission rights, agricultural products and global commodities (Freight) alongside decreases on the power derivatives market.
Double digit growth was also achieved on the natural gas spot business. A challenging regulatory environment, in particular the price zone debate and possible split of the German/Austria bidding zone has had an impact on the trading volumes in EEX’s power markets which was in line with the performance in the European power market as a whole.
In the first six months of the year, a volume of 1,861.0 TWh was traded on the Power Spot and Derivatives Markets (1st half of 2016: 2,247.8), which corresponds to a 17 per cent decrease as against the previous year.
On the EPEX SPOT power spot markets, volume remained relatively constant with 270.4 TWh traded (1st half of 2016: 277.2 TWh). Volumes in the intraday markets – operated for Germany, France, Austria, Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium and UK increased by 13 per cent with a total volume of 34.7 TWh traded. In the Day-Ahead market segment a volume of 231.1 TWh was traded, representing a reduction of 6 per cent as against the half year 2016. The volume further included the spot markets in Serbia (SEEPEX), 0.4 TWh, and the Czech Republic (PXE), with 4.2 TWh traded.
The volume on the power derivatives markets amounted to 1,590.6 TWh which is a decrease of 19 per cent as against the previous year (1st half of 2016: 1,970.6 TWh). The volume traded in the German power market totalled 1,062.2 TWh (-20 per cent compared with the same period in 2016) against the background of increased regulatory uncertainty, representing an overall market share of 33 per cent. In the French power derivatives market, a volume of 100.4 TWh was traded (1st half of 2016: 239.8 TWh), which equates to a market share of 28 per cent. This was mainly due to the ARENH tariff, in conjunction with the unexpected shut-down of nuclear power plants in France. Italian power derivatives totalled 165.3 TWh (1st half of 2016: 262.5 TWh) while the Spanish power derivatives market totalled 32.3 TWh (1st half of 2016: 34.5 TWh). Despite an overall shrinking of the European power market, EEX was able to gain market shares in two of its core markets, achieving 38 per cent in Spain (1st half of 2016: 27 per cent) and 68 per cent in Italy (1st half of 2016: 62 per cent).
Following the acquisition of the US-based Nodal Exchange in May 2017, the EEX Group offering has also been extended to the US energy market. Since 1 May 2017, a volume of 131.4 TWh was traded in power derivatives on Nodal Exchange which is included in the total volume. In the first half of 2017, the trading volume of Nodal Exchange increased by 24 per cent as against the previous year. In addition, the Dutch (5.5 TWh, +160 per cent), Belgian (0.9 TWh, +1,302 per cent) and Greek Power Futures (0.3 TWh, +1,985 per cent) showed a positive development. In mid-June, the contracts previously listed on Power Exchange Central Europe (PXE) were migrated onto the EEX T7 trading platform, with a volume of 1.3 TWh traded as of the end of June 2017.
On the natural gas markets of EEX Group, a volume of 929.1 TWh was traded in the first half of 2017 (1st half of 2016: 954.6 TWh). The natural gas spot markets contributed 413.4 TWh which is an increase of 28 per cent as against the same period in 2016. In particular, the Belgian (21.0 TWh, +139 per cent), the Dutch (108.0 TWh, +25 per cent) and the French (81.5 TWh, +28 per cent) gas hubs showed strong growth rates. The trading volume in the natural gas derivatives market totalled 515.7 TWh (as against 632.3 TWh).
All remaining segments of the EEX Group product portfolio achieved significant increases across the board.
Volumes on the markets for emission allowances increased by more than a third to 648.8 million tonnes of CO2 (1st half of 2016: 468.6 million tonnes of CO2). This includes 427.3 million tonnes of CO2 from the primary market auctions (previous year: 338.2 million tonnes of CO2). Due to continued enhancements in the secondary market, EEX was able to considerably increase volumes as against the previous year: On the emissions spot markets, volumes increased by more than a quarter to 37.6 million tonnes of CO2 (1st half of 2016: 29.6 million tonnes of CO2). On the emissions derivatives markets EEX volumes almost doubled to 183.4 million tonnes of CO2 (1st half of 2016: 100.5 million tonnes of CO2).
On the agricultural markets, in total 34,489 contracts were traded in the first half of 2017, representing an increase of 50 per cent as against the first half of 2016 (22,955 contracts). The dairy product segment continued its positive development and grew by more than 51 per cent to 12,866 contracts (equals 64,330 tonnes of commodity equivalent) traded in futures on butter, whey powder and skimmed milk powder (1st half of 2016: 42,485 tonnes; 8,497 contracts). The volume in processing potatoes amounted to 21,623 contracts traded as against 14,452 contracts in the first half of 2016.
Within Global Commodities, EEX Group continued to grow successfully in its freight segment. Overall 257,122 contracts were traded in the first half year 2017, representing a 26 per cent increase (1st half of 2016: 204,771 contracts). Further positive developments were achieved in the coal (+182 per cent) and fuel oil markets (+40 per cent).
Peter Reitz (pictured), CEO of EEX, explains: “With the acquisition of Nodal Exchange and the PXE migration, we have been able to increase our scale and size. In doing so, we are getting closer to our ambition of becoming a global commodity exchange and further establishing ourselves as commodity experts within Deutsche Börse Group. Our performance over the past 6 months shows that our diversification strategy is working”.
