On Wednesday 10 May, the European Commission launched the first tender for joint gas purchasing using the European Union’s energy platform (see EUROPE 13169/5) and calls on international suppliers to participate.
“This is a historic milestone. This is the first time ever that the collective strength of the European Union is being used to improve our energy security and tackle high gas and electricity prices”, said European Commission Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič.
So far, 107 European and international companies have already signed up to this bulk purchase via the AggregateEU platform and more are in the process of doing so.
For this first tendering round, 77 European companies requested a total volume of 11.6 billion cubic metres of gas. For liquefied natural gas (LNG), demand is about 2.8 billion cubic metres, while 9.6 billion cubic metres are requested for delivery by pipeline.
Šefčovič welcomes the creation of a new market for gas in Europe and calls on all reliable international suppliers to participate and “help serve European customers”.
This tender is open until 15 May and covers gas deliveries from June 2023 until May 2024. Further tenders will follow the next demand aggregation exercises in June, August, October and December 2023. (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)