PRESS RELEASE

(Bucharest, August 17, 2015)

August 15, 2015 – OPCOM celebrates 15 years of existence

On August 15, 2000 the Company Romanian Gas and Electricity Market Operator was founded as the authorized structure to manage the wholesale electricity and system services market in Romania in terms of the primary and secondary legislation in force at that time. During these 15 years of its existence, OPCOM has provided the viable and efficient organized framework carrying commercial transactions administered in terms of consistency, accuracy, objectivity, independence, equidistant, transparent and non-discriminatory.
We would like to list the responsibilities accomplished by our company in the fifteenth year of its existence, responsibilities that are deriving from the role of organiser and administrator of the centralised electricity markets operator and of the settlement operator within the wholesale electricity market, according to the ANRE in force regulations and to the license no. 407 – 2/2013 conditions, and from its role of organiser and administrator of the natural gas centralised markets, according to the ANRE in force regulations and to the license no. 1798/2013 conditions:

• organizing and administering the centralised electricity markets respectively intraday market, day-ahead market, centralised market for electricity bilateral contracts with the specific trading mechanisms, centralised market for universal service, centralised market with double continuous negotiating for electricity bilateral contracts market and centralised electricity market for large customers;
• organizing and administering the green certificates market with its two components, namely centralised market for bilateral contracts of green certificates and centralized green certificates market and administration of green certificates Registry;
• organizing and administering the trading platform for greenhouse gases emission certificates;
• performing as settlement operator for electricity centralized markets having the quality of counterparty and that of exclusive settlement operator having the role of establishing the rights of collection / payment obligations for market participants on the balancing market and the imbalances in terms of quantity and value for Balance Responsible Parties;
• organizing and administering the centralized market for natural gas with the specific trading mechanisms;
• surveillance of the administrated markets.

2015 marks changes in terms of the regulatory framework that governs the functioning of the administrated electricity and gas markets.
Also, 2015 brings the recognition of OPCOM policies concerning the quality and security information domain by Information Security Management System certification and Quality Management System re-certification according to ISO 27001:2013 si 9001:2008.
2015 as year of challenges continues, being planned new responsibilities for OPCOM in the context of the new European regulations:
- the unique coupling of day-ahead market and of intraday market – Regulation (EU) no. 1222/2015;
- implementing the provisions on transparency and integrity of wholesale electricity market – Regulation (UE) no. 1227/2011.

PRESS RELEASE 17.8.2015