PRESS RELEASE
(Bucharest, February 6th 2009)

OPCOM markets in the first month of this year. Trends and records.

The trading results on the OPCOM administered markets in January 2009 were characterized by clear trends, but absolute records too. The DAM prices’ evolution had the same continuously downward trend as in all European power markets, being in the same time at the minimum level. Conversely, the trend of the trading volumes was upward.

Therefore for the last delivery day of January 2009, the hourly prices established by OPCOM on the DAM have an average value of 34.68 lei/MWh (8.20 euro/MWh), figure which strengths the general downward trend of the average daily prices in this month. With this last daily value the monthly traded energy price on OPCOM’s DAM is 135.18 lei/MWh (32.17 euro/MWh), for the consecutive month the lowest price established by the European power exchanges. The comparison with the average monthly prices on OPCOM’s DAM, in the latest period, confirms a continuous downward trend which has begun in October 2008 and has emphasized in December 2008. Related to the whole period since the new trading platform launch the only average monthly prices less than of January 2009 were registered in July 2005 (21.09 euro/MWh), August 2008 (26.03 euro/MWh), and June 2006 (31.83 euro/MWh).
The steady trend of the growing interest for the trading registered in January on DAM led to new record traded volumes:
- 677 MWh/h – 1,257 MWh/h, the highest levels of hourly volumes’ range,
- 1,257 MWh/h the absolute record value for the hourly volume registered on the 8th of January 2009, hour 7 p.m.,
- 50 hourly intervals in which the trades exceeded the value of 1,000 MWh/h, the biggest monthly value since the launch of the platform.
In January 2009 it was set an absolute record on the CMBC, a delivery volume of 959,410 MWh, meaning a market share of 20% from this month foreseeable consumption.

PRESS RELEASE 06.02.2009