PRESS RELEASE
(Bucharest, August 4th, 2009)
July 2009 – having as background the increase of the forecasted consumption related to last month, the record volume contracted on spot market, 635,792 MWh, equivalent of a market share of 15.51%, together with the deliveries from CMBC, brings the liquidity of products traded on OPCOM’s market place at a level of almost 40% of the estimated consumption.

DAM: a month with comparable performances to those recorded in June 2009, reflected by an hourly average volume of 855 MWh/h and by a market share of 15.51% of the forecasted consumption.
CMBC: Almost 1 TWh in delivery under forward transactions, a record value according to OPCOM’s statistics.
CMGC: The results of the first five auctions for 2009 indicate a total of 45,280 green certificates traded centralized, respectively a quota of 41% of the certificates issued by the deadlines for the expressing intentions of trading on OPCOM’s platform.

Reported to the previous month, the results are comparable (854.560 MWh/h compared to 855.148 MWh/h), the market share corresponding to July being closer than one percent to the value set in June 2009 - 16.16% of the forecasted consumption.
The monthly average price, 36.32 EUR/MWh (153.23 lei/MWh), has been decreasing compared to July last year, the decrease being 21% in national currency and 33% in European currency. In July 2009, electricity trades on European spot market were within a range of monthly average prices between 32 euro/MWh and 61 euro/MWh, the average value at European level being around 37 EUR/MWh, the average prices set by OPCOM being slightly below the average value at European level.
Of the 92 participants registered to the market, 62 expressed their interest submitting offers this month; these intentions were materialized in hourly transactions by a range of variation between 367 MWh/h and 1,308 MWh/h. In this range of variation, in 27% of the cases the hourly volumes exceeded the limit of 1,000 MWh/h, while lowering the limit, in almost three quarters of the cases transactions amounted at least 700 MWh/h.
The performances are maintained also for the first seven months, from an hourly average volume of 440 MWh/h in 2006, 552 MWh/h in 2007 and 601 MWh/h in 2008, to 766 MWh/h – the average of the hourly volume traded in the first seven months of this year. A similar trend had the market share of the forecasted consumption: if in the first seven months of 2006 it was 7.28%, today it has reached 13.28%, for the first time above the percentage of 13%. While in previous years, increasing from one year to another was about two percent or less, the current growth rate, 2009 to 2008, was almost 4%.

Set at the highest value since July 2008, when trading in the spot market and the corresponding financial flows are intermediated by OPCOM as central counterparty, the payment obligations/rights for the electricity delivered in July 2009 amounts to 28 mil. euro (118.2 mil. lei), these obligations being paid on time.

The trades previously concluded on CMBC indicate for July a record value for the volume of the delivered electricity 986,362 MWh, at the weighted price of 44.66 EUR/MWh (189.06 lei/MWh), representing a 23.44% share of the estimated consumption for this month.

Of a number of 39 participants who expressed their interest in transactions with delivery covering July 2009, 30 were winners, result materialized by signing of 76 contracts, equivalent of the largest volume contracted for a month since December 2005, when it was concluded the first forward transaction through the centralized environment made available to participants by OPCOM.
In July were traded new forward contracts with delivery in 2009 – 2010 and with delivery periods of over one year, amounting 248,660 MWh, at the weighted price of 39.91 EUR/MWh (169.06 lei/MWh).

In order to fulfil the mandatory quota for 2009, in the fifth monthly trading session, the electricity suppliers purchased 11,972 green certificates at the price of 55 EUR/certificate (215.34 lei/certificate).