IPE relaunches UK power futures

The International Petroleum Exchange (IPE), the London-based energy futures and options exchange, will relaunch UK baseload and peakload electricity futures contracts on September 14. Meanwhile, London-based clearing house LCH Clearnet yesterday cleared its first over-the-counter UK power trade, between RWE Trading and ScottishPower Energy Management. The companies would not reveal the volume, value or type of transaction.

The new IPE contracts will be physically deliverable and are based on the electricity forward agreement calendar, which splits the year into four- and five-week blocks rather than calendar months. The original contract – delisted in March 2002 due to its lack of liquidity – was based instead on calendar months, which contributed to its slow take-up, said IPE spokesman Jason LaBrooy.

The IPE had introduced its original contract in March 2001 in response to the UK’s New Electricity Trading Arrangements.

Month, quarter and season contracts will now be available to trade concurrently, also unlike the original product. At launch, the first traded month will be November 04, the first quarter, Q1 05, and the first season, summer 05. The IPE also changed its natural gas contracts to the concurrent approach in May.

The contracts will be cleared through LCH Clearnet and have a minimum trading size of 10 megawatts. The IPE will offer the normal EFP, EFS and block trade facilities and grant margin offset arrangements against other IPE contracts, including natural gas futures.

The trading, registration and clearing of the contracts will cost 0.225p per megawatt hour inclusive.