CEZ, central Europe\u2019s biggest utility company, will move into the Latvian and Lithuanian power and gas markets in the next few months and expand its trading activities in the Balkans, CEZ\u2019s Director of Trading Ludek Horn said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
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Majority state-owned CEZ has also started to trade more in Belgium, France and Italy and is entering the UK power trading market to take advantage of the new transmission line to the continent, he told Reuters in an interview.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThis will be an interesting market for us,\u201d Horn said of the UK. \u201cThis is a market where we want to step in and should be active in a few weeks.\u201d CEZ already trades physical gas in the UK.<\/p>\n
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Growing liquidity on spot exchanges is making the Balkans an attractive region to expand power trading activities, Horn said.<\/p>\n
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\u201cGas will play a big role in Europe in general and one reason why we are entering into new markets,\u201d Horn said.<\/p>\n
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CEZ first began trading a foreign market in 2004 when it launched power futures\/spot trading in Germany. In 2018, CEZ generated 3 billion Czech crowns from its propriety trading, up 1 billion crowns from a year earlier.<\/p>\n
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The company\u2019s latest expansion will ensure the utility is active in nearly all European markets, including Scandinavia where it plans to soon start trading physical power futures in addition to financial products, Horn said.<\/p>\n
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Credit: Reuters (Reporting by Michael Kahn, Editing by Susan Fenton)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"