The European Energy Exchange (EEX), part of the EEX Group. is introducing new financial-physical spread contracts from 1 October 2025 to enable more efficient price hedging opportunities as well as to boost overall market liquidity.
The series of new instruments will include combinations of spark spreads, instruments reflecting the difference between the wholesale power price and the cost of electricity production from natural gas. The trading of such contracts link EEX’s financially settled power markets with the physical natural gas markets, with simultaneous, guaranteed execution of both legs, thus optimising trading strategies. In addition, spark spreads can support investment decisions with regard to natural gas-fired power plants.
EEX will also launch bespoke financial-physical natural gas spreads, which will allow trading participants to implement a strategy similar to a trade-at-index approach, with respect to the EEX European Gas Spot Index (EEX EGSI). Traders will be able to buy the physical gas leg and simultaneously sell the EGSI financial leg, resulting in actually being exposed to delivery at the EGSI index.
The EGSI index, considered as the most transparent and liquid price reference in the European gas market, is determined as the volume-weighted average price of all trades in the day-ahead and weekend contracts on any given exchange trading day before the start of the delivery period of the contract.
The new contracts will be available in a variety of combinations for the related EEX markets – both for orderbook trading and trade registration.
