Storage market
Storage market
Since gas liberalisation in October 2002 third parties have had access to Austrian underground storage facilities. The legal basis for the regulation of the storage market is provided by the relevant EU directives, which were transposed by the Gaswirtschaftsgesetz (Natural Gas Act).In March 2005 the Madrid Forum — an advisory platform that brings together representatives of the European Commission, the European gas industry, traders, regulators and other energy market stakeholders — adopted the Guidelines for Good Practice for Storage System Operators (GGPSSO). These are rules for access to gas storage facilities, market transparency and the design of storage products. Compliance with the GGPSSO by storage operators is voluntary.
Section 39 Natural Gas Act requires that access to storage systems be granted on a non-discriminatory and transparent basis. These provisions have increased the use of storage capacity by third parties, including foreign companies. However the Austrian storage market is largely domestic since the use of foreign facilities is very limited due to the shortage of transportation and storage capacity.
The Austrian gas storage facilities are all located in the Eastern control area, in the concession areas of the two oil and gas producers, OMV AG and RAG AG . Total working gas capacity at Austrian storage facilities is over 4 billion cubic metres — equal to almost one-half of domestic gas demand in 2008. RAG AG and OMV AG — the latter via OMV Gas GmbH — are both storage operators. Wingas GmbH and ZMB are also storage companies in the meaning of the Natural Gas Act. The Haidach storage facility, commissioned in July 2007, is connected not to the Austrian but to the south German transmission grid (the upstream system operator is Wingas GmbH).
The Austrian storage operators allocate storage capacity on a first come, first served basis. OMV employs an online capacity booking system which is also used to allocate transport capacity; access is free of charge. The other operators receive binding enquiries via their websites.
OMV Gas GmbH offers interruptible storage products through which unused capacity can be provided. RAG's terms and conditions contain no congestion management procedures. Wingas GmbH and Gazexport have use-it-or-lose-it rules in their terms and conditions; these relate to the use of storage capacity for one-year periods.
The charges for the transportation of natural gas from storage facilties to exit points at the boundaries of the Eastern control area are governed by the Sonstige-Transporte-Gas-Systemnutzungstarife-Verordnung (Other Gas Shipments System Charges Order, German only), which entered into effect in October 2007.
The demand for storage capacity comes from Austrian gas wholesalers and distributors that supply large consumers, power stations and local suppliers. Foreign companies also use the facilities for interim storage related to transit business, and to offer flexible delivery to the Central European Gas Hub trading points.
