In the course of its campaign to provide more transparency European Energy Exchange (EEX) will publish details regarding market making on its website as of now. On the one hand, the information provided concerns the products with regard to which the market makers have entered into obligations to quote and on the other hand, the information concerns the obligations to quote as such.
The obligations to quote are conditions regarding the time, quantity and price at which the market makers have to enter both buy and sell orders. For example, an obligation to quote on the part of one of the market makers might look as follows: The market maker undertakes to place both buy and sell prices for at least 25 contracts with a maximum spread of EUR 0.40 in the trading system of EEX simultaneously for 80 per cent of the trading time regarding a given contract (e.g. Yearly Phelix Baseload Future 2007).
Currently, the following companies operate as market makers on the EEX Derivatives Market: Deriwatt AG (Switzerland), E.ON Sales & Trading GmbH (Germany), RWE Trading GmbH (Germany), Sempra Energy Europe Limited (Great Britain), Vattenfall Trading Services GmbH (Germany). The following companies currently operate as market makers on the EEX Spot Market for EU emission allowances: Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft- Laufenburg AG (Switzerland), RWE Trading GmbH (Germany).
In addition to information regarding market making, EEX will also publish information regarding the presence of so-called fast market situations on its web site as of now. Such a situation arises in case prices change very quickly with high fluctuations within a very short period of time. So far, the presence of a fast market situation has been communicated via the trading system ensuring that all the trading participants are informed thereof in this way. Special obligations to quote apply with regard to the market makers in case of fast market situations.
Further information regarding market making on EEX is provided at www.eex.de.
EEX operates a Spot and a Derivatives Market for energy and CO2 emission allowances. With currently 149 trading participants from 19 countries, it is the energy ex-change in continental Europe with the largest number of trading participants and the biggest turnover. The range of services provided by EEX is complemented by related services such as the integrated clearing of exchange transactions and over-the-counter transactions (OTC clearing). On 2 May 2006 EEX became the first exchange in Europe to launch OTC clearing of coal contracts and trading in coal futures.