Diario Oficial de la Unión Europea del 29/12/2022 - Sección Legislación
Text version What is this?Dateas is an independent website not affiliated with any government agency. The source of the PDF documents that we publish is the official agency stated in each of them. The text versions are non official transcripts that we do to provide better tools for accessing and searching information, but may contain errors or may not be complete.
Source: Diario Oficial de la Unión Europea - Sección Legislación
L 335/2
EN
Official Journal of the European Union
29.12.2022
5
The EU Energy Purchase Platform can play a pivotal role in seeking mutually beneficial partnerships that contribute to security of supply and lead to lower import prices of gas purchased from third countries, making full use of the Unions collective weight. Enhanced international outreach to gas suppliers both pipeline and LNG as well as the green hydrogen suppliers of the future is essential for this purpose. In particular a much stronger coordination with and among Member States via--vis third countries via the EU Energy Purchase Platform would ensure the Unions collective weight is more effective.
6
As a situation of severe difficulties in ensuring security of supply persists, joint purchasing should help ensure more equal access for undertakings across Member States to new or additional gas sources and, to the benefit of final consumers, help ensure lower prices than might otherwise have applied to those purchasing the gas through the service provider individually.
7
Joint purchasing could result in granting a more beneficial treatment or support to the supply of renewable gases such as biomethane and hydrogen, insofar as they can safely be injected into the gas system, and to the supply of gas which would otherwise be vented or flared. In the absence of a formal legal requirement in any relevant jurisdiction, undertakings concluding contracts pursuant to this Regulation will be able to use the UN Oil and Gas Methane Partnership 2.0 reporting framework to measure, report and verify methane emissions along the supply chain to the Union.
8
The new mechanism developed under this Regulation should consist of two steps. As a first step, natural gas undertakings or undertakings consuming gas established in the Union would aggregate their gas demand through a service provider, contracted by the Commission. This would allow gas suppliers to make offers on the basis of large aggregated volumes, instead of many smaller offers to purchasers approaching them individually. In a second step, natural gas undertakings or undertakings consuming gas established in the Union may conclude gas purchase contracts, individually or in a coordinated manner with others, with natural gas suppliers or producers that have matched the aggregated demand.
9
As a situation of severe difficulties in ensuring security of supply persists, demand aggregation and joint purchasing should help ensure more equal access for undertakings across Member States to new or additional gas sources and, to the benefit of final consumers, help ensure lower prices than might otherwise have applied to undertakings purchasing the gas through the service provider. A first reference to the possibility of a very limited form of joint purchasing of gas for balancing purposes is already included in the Commissions proposal for a Regulation on the internal markets for renewable and natural gases and for hydrogen. However, that proposal dates from a time before the Russian Federations war of aggression against Ukraine. Furthermore, no detailed concept was included in that proposal, which only concerned the very specific needs of transmission system operators for balancing energy. As an immediate and much more comprehensive solution to the problem of missing structures for coordinated gas purchasing is needed, it is appropriate to propose a temporary fast-track solution.
10
Demand aggregation and joint purchasing could, therefore, strengthen Union solidarity in purchasing and distributing gas. In a spirit of solidarity, joint purchasing should support particularly those undertakings that were previously purchasing gas only or mainly from Russian suppliers by helping them to obtain supplies from alternative natural gas suppliers or providers in advantageous conditions, as a result of the demand aggregation and joint purchasing.
11
The demand aggregation and joint purchasing should help fill up gas storage facilities in the current emergency situation, should most of the European gas storage facilities be depleted after the upcoming winter. Moreover, those measures should help purchase gas in a more coordinated manner in the spirit of solidarity.
12
It is therefore necessary to urgently and on a temporary basis establish demand aggregation and joint purchasing.
This would allow the rapid establishment of a service provider, which would enable the aggregation of demand. The service provider contracted by the Commission would have only some basic functionalities and the process it organises would only have mandatory elements regarding participation in aggregating demand but would not yet include a mandatory coordination of the contractual conditions or an obligation to submit binding offers to purchase gas through it.
