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Course Level
Introduction
Delivery Method
Classroom Instructor-Led Course
Professional Development Credit Hours
24
Pre-requisites
There is no pre-requisite for this course.

"Extremely well presented and interesting. Being new to the industry the information delivered was at the right level of interest."  Shell

Faculty

Nigel Harris is a director and principal consultant at Kingston Energy Consulting, which he founded with Mary Jackson in 2002. He has been helping energy traders to analyse and understand the markets for over 25 years, initially as a developer of market analysis software systems, and more recently as a consultant. At Kingston Energy Consulting, his main focus is on providing education and information transfer to participants in the energy trading business, through instructor-led classroom training, web-based training development, research projects, workshops, briefings and research-based report writing. In his work with Mennta Energy Solutions, he has created a library of new instructor-led and web-based courses on European gas and power markets and trading. In 2005, he worked with Mary Jackson to develop the popular Oil Trading Orientation course, which has since been presented at venues all over the world. He has also extensively revised and updated many existing courses on derivatives, hedging and risk management.   He regularly presents this material both at public venues and as in-house, often customised, courses. He is co-author of a series of highly regarded reports on European natural gas trading and has also contributed to reports on power markets and oil trading. In previous roles, he was a key member of the team that initially designed and developed Saladin 's innovative Petroleum Analysis Workstation, a system that became an industry standard for historical price analysis during the 1990s and remained in use in the industry for two decades. During this period, he worked closely and extensively with oil and gas traders around the world to understand their information and analytical requirements. He also spent some years as an independent consultant, working mainly with software and information providers to help them better understand the oil and gas trading sectors.

Accreditations

CPD Certification Services: The CPD Certification Service works with Mennta Energy Solutions to ensure valuable knowledge is structured to complement the universal guidelines of Continuing Professional Development. Mennta Energy Solutions courses are approved by CPD at one credit per training hour.


European Gas and Power Trading (CLASSROOM) - EGPT

Course Schedule

Date Time Location Price* Registration Deadline**
1-3 Apr 2025
Register 		9:00-17:00
 London, UK
 GBP 3,235 (EGPT-ALDN25-04)
 28 Feb 2025

*Prices do not include VAT, GST, or any other local taxes. All applicable taxes will be added to the invoice.
**Please register by the deadline to help us ensure sufficient attendance and avoid postponing the course.

Course Summary

European Gas and Power trading is a three-day course presented by the energy training experts at Mennta Energy Solutions. This three-day, highly interactive, workshop is designed to provide an introductory overview of the way natural gas and electricity are traded within Europe. Delegates will learn the general principles of how gas and power markets work and how energy trading is carried out in the various different types of markets - spot and forward, exchange-based and OTC. They will also get an idea of what a trader's job involves through competitive team trading simulations and other hands-on exercises that focus on different aspects of trading and risk management.

Topics explored include:

  • Basic trading concepts
  • Fundamentals of gas
  • Power and emissions markets
  • Market analysis
  • Gas and power trading instruments
  • Trading strategies including arbitrage and the use of gas storage
  • Mechanics of trading on exchanges, in auctions and through bilateral contracts
  • Principles of risk measurement, management and hedging

Who Should Attend?

The course is ideal for anyone who needs an introduction to energy trading and the role of trading within gas and power markets. Typical delegates would include support staff, analysts, accountants and managers in trading area, along with those involved with energy supply, risk management, credit, finance, contracts, IT, operations, transportation and storage. The course would also be suitable as an introductory foundation course for someone just starting out in a trading career, or making the transition to gas and power trading from other markets.

Course Content

Characteristics of gas and power markets

  • What makes gas and power markets different from other commodities
  • The importance of reliability and flexibility
  • Short-term trading and price volatility

Market Liberalisation and Regulation

  • Conventional and liberalised market structures
  • The European energy market liberalisation programme
  • Key concepts in market liberalisation

Basic trading concepts

  • Reasons for gas, power and emissions trading
  • Players in the physical gas and power markets, and their roles in traded markets
  • Types of trader and trading activity
  • Europe 's major gas and power suppliers and traders
  • Key trading concepts and terminology

Natural gas fundamentals

  • Introduction to natural gas, its supply chain and end-user markets
  • Natural gas quality issues
  • Natural gas supply and demand trends
  • Transportation infrastructure and developments
  • The need for capacity and flexibility
  • Gas storage

Power fundamentals

  • Introduction to power generation technology
  • Generation fuels and their characteristics
  • The nature of end-user power markets
  • Power generation capacity and consumption trends
  • Load-following contracts
  • Baseload and peak power
  • Principles of economic dispatch

Gas and power market design

  • Pools and bilateral market models
  • Balancing and balancing systems
  • Interactions between traders and infrastructure operators
  • Gas and power market designs in Europe
  • Access to transmission capacity
  • Market coupling mechanisms
  • Transmission pricing principles

Gas and Power trading

  • Long-term and short-term markets
  • National and regional markets
  • Trading hubs, zones and regions
  • Spot and forward trading
  • OTC and exchange trading
  • Price drivers in gas and power markets

Trading Instruments

  • Gas trading instruments
  • Power trading instruments
  • Calendars, standard contracts
  • Physical and financial settlement
  • Futures and exchange-traded options
  • OTC swaps and options
  • Spark spread trading
  • Long-term gas contracts
  • Retail energy supply contracts

Emissions market fundamentals

  • Principles of emissions control and trading
  • International agreements and the Kyoto Protocol
  • The European Emissions Trading Scheme
  • Paricipants in emissions trading markets
  • Trading activity, OTC and exchange markets
  • Allowance pricing and price drivers

Storage and Flexibility

  • The operational and trading roles of storage
  • Physical flexibility in gas and electricity supply
  • Forward curves, seasonality and the value of storage
  • Intrinsic and extrinsic storage value
  • Hedging a flexible power plant

Mechanics of trading

  • Bilateral negotiation
  • OTC broker markets
  • Screen-based trading
  • Auction mechanisms

Risk and Risk Management

  • Volume risk and price risk
  • Sources of risk in energy trading
  • Risk management goals and principles
  • Measurement and quantification of risk (including VAR)
  • Hedging goals and principles
  • Derivatives markets and their uses
  • Exchange traded and OTC instruments
  • Hedging with futures, forwards and swaps
  • Options-based hedging strategies (including collars)

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