EU member states agree on gas price intervention

　　China News Agency, Brussels, December 19 (Reporter De Yongjian) The European Union announced on the 19th that member states reached an agreement on natural gas price intervention, and decided to set the natural gas price ceiling at 180 euros per megawatt-hour.

　　According to the announcement issued by the EU Council on the same day, if the natural gas futures price of the Dutch Title Transfer Center (TTF), which is regarded as the European natural gas benchmark price, exceeds 180 euros per megawatt-hour for three consecutive working days, and the TTF natural gas If the price is 35 euros higher than the LNG market reference price, price intervention will be automatically triggered. At that time, the natural gas futures transaction of the Dutch ownership transfer center that is 35 euros higher than the liquefied natural gas market reference price will not be accepted.

　　According to the announcement, the relevant EU regulations will be implemented on February 15 next year. Once the price intervention is triggered, it will last for at least 20 working days; Intervention will be deactivated automatically.

　　At the same time, the regulations introduce a "braking mechanism", that is, if the security of natural gas supply is endangered, financial market turmoil is caused, existing contracts are affected, and the internal market is disrupted, the European Commission can stop price intervention at any time.

　　Regarding the scope of the intervention, the announcement states that the regulations do not apply to transactions for immediate delivery, nor to off-exchange transactions, ie gas transactions carried out outside the Dutch ownership transfer centre.

　　On November 22, the European Commission announced the natural gas price intervention plan; in contrast, the regulations finalized by the EU member states lowered the natural gas price ceiling from 275 euros per megawatt hour to 180 euros per megawatt hour, and the time limit was changed from "two consecutive weeks "Reduced to "three consecutive working days", which is equivalent to greatly reducing the "threshold" for natural gas price intervention.

　　For fear of disrupting the EU energy market, EU member states have had different attitudes towards natural gas price intervention in the past month.

According to media reports, even if an agreement is reached on the 19th, Hungary, the Netherlands, Austria and other countries still have reservations about intervening in natural gas prices, and Germany was once full of doubts.

　　According to the announcement of the EU Council, after the intervention on natural gas prices starts on February 15 next year, the relevant EU regulations will last for one year; the EU plans to evaluate the effect of the intervention in November next year, and the regulations can be extended as appropriate.

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