London, 12 January 2012

APX-ENDEX, the Anglo-Dutch energy exchange, today announced volumes of its power and gas exchanges for the year 2011. APX-ENDEX witnessed an exciting year with solid growth in volumes, memberships and improved services and products for its trading members. A total volume of 592 TWh was traded and/or cleared by APX-ENDEX, showing an overall growth of 25% from the previous year (475 TWh).

The futures markets saw rapid growth in volumes with a total volume of 371 TWh, of which 263 TWh was traded on the exchange and 108 TWh was registered for clearing via the OTC clearing service. The spot markets recorded healthy volumes of 221 TWh traded. The number of memberships across the markets experienced strong growth from the previous year, indicating solid interest in APX-ENDEX markets and totalled 416 by the end of 2011, up from 396 in 2010.

APX-ENDEX yearly volumes grow 25% year-on-year, reaching 592 TWh

Memberships up by 5%, reaching a total of 416 across the markets

The TTF Gas markets experience rapid growth and become the European Benchmark

Energy prices in 2011 – spot prices go up, power futures settlements prices down

Total value of cleared contracts: 18 billion Euros: 11 billion by ECC and 7 billion by APX-ENDEX

New product developments on the TTF Gas spot and futures markets

Significant enhancements implemented on the Power UK market

“Year 2011 was one of our best years. We launched a number of projects and initiatives across the markets and are pleased to have our members support. The gas markets have seen a positive year of growing volumes. A good indication of the TTF Gas market becoming a true European benchmark for the continental Europe is the explosive volume growth across our TTF Gas spot and futures markets. Regarding electricity, the launch of BritNed market coupling connecting the GB market to the wider CWE region has been successfully. In general, we have seen a continued success of the CWE market coupling, the ITVC coupling across NorNed cable and our Benelux intra-day market, resulting in climbing volumes of our spot markets”, says Bert den Ouden, CEO of APX-ENDEX.

Dutch and Belgian Power and Gas Markets in 2011

Power NL– Spot volumes experience significant growth

The Dutch spot and futures power markets recorded a total of 69.1 TWh during 2011. The Dutch Day-Ahead auction, connected to the coupled Central West European market, experienced a record year with a total volume of 40.4 TWh traded, up by 21% from 2010. The Intraday market, now connected to the Belgian Intraday, saw strong growth from the previous years with a total of 278 GWh traded in 2011. The APX-ENDEX Power NL futures saw a slide in the volumes when a total of 28.4 TWh was registered on the market, of which 16.1 TWh was traded and 12.3 TWh registered for clearing via the OTC clearing service during the year.

A total of 905,199 trades were registered on the Power NL markets during 2011.

Belgian Power – Increasing volumes across the markets

Just as the Power NL market, the Belpex Day-Ahead market is connected to the CWE market coupling and 2011 witnessed increasing volumes on the market. The Day-Ahead auction experienced growth in its volumes and recorded the best year so far with a total of 12.4 TWh traded in 2011. The Belgian Intraday market saw 361 GWh traded in 2011.

The BE futures market maintained its steady growth and experienced an increase from the previous year by recording a total of 10 TWh, of which 9.1 TWh was traded on the exchange and 892 GWh was registered for clearing via the OTC clearing service.

248,865 trades were registered on the Belgian Power markets.

CWE Price Convergence in 2011

In 2011 the entire CWE region had full price convergence for approximately 66% of the time. The Dutch market was connected 94% of the time with at least one neighbouring country (Germany or Belgium) and the Belgian market was converging with a neighbouring market (The Netherlands or France) 99% of the time.

Gas NL and Gas BE – TTF Gas markets break new records

TTF has strengthened its role as the leading benchmark for gas trading in continental Europe in 2011. This was reflected in all time record high total volumes with a total of 346 TWh traded and cleared on the APX-ENDEX TTF Gas spot and futures markets.

The volumes traded on the TTF Gas spot market saw significant growth by doubling in volumes compared to 2010. A total of 11.9 TWh was traded on the Day-Ahead market, up by 100%. The newly launched products on the Withinday market resulted in the market witnessing significant growth by trading a total of 477 GWh, up from 112 GWh in 2010. October’s monthly volume reached an all time high with 2.4 TWh traded on the market. The volumes on the Gas ZEE market slightly increased with 248 GWh traded.

The total volumes on the TTF Gas futures market saw an all time high when 333 TWh was registered on the market in 2011. The exchange traded volumes doubled in 2011 and reached a total of 238 TWh while 95 TWh was registered for clearing via the OTC clearing service. November witnessed record high monthly volumes when 29.5 TWh was traded on the exchange while the record high of 13.5 was registered for clearing in January.

A total of 15,109 trades were registered on the continental gas markets.

UK Power and Gas Markets in 2011

Power UK – Screen-traded volumes experience growth, Day-Ahead auction gains importance

The Power UK market witnessed growing volumes across its markets. A total of 13.7 TWh was traded on the exchange’s continuous markets, up by 11% from the previous year. The APX-ENDEX OTC Broker Give-up was down in volume in 2011 by reaching a total of 48.5 GWh. The APX-ENDEX Day-Ahead auction gained significance on the market when the volumes traded in the auction grew throughout the year since the launch of the BritNed market coupling. The total volume of the auction reached 2.6 TWh since April 2011. A total of 424,672 trades were placed across the Power UK markets during 2011.

Gas UK – the OCM market sees increasing volumes

The Gas UK markets saw increasing volumes and reached a total of 138 TWh. Majority of the volume, 137.6 TWh (4,696 million therms) was traded on the On-the-day Commodity Market (OCM). The Gas Capacity market volume experienced a slight decrease from 2010 by recording 352 GWh.

An all time high number of trades was placed on the Gas UK market with a total of 73,229 trades.

Average Monthly Prices Go Up on APX-ENDEX Spot Markets

The energy prices of 2011 across the markets continued to increase compared to the previous two year’s prices, yet remained still lower than in 2008 before the economic crisis. In the Netherlands, the average base-load spot price throughout 2011 was €52.03/MWh while the price in 2010 was €45.35/MWh. The Belgian base-load spot price recorded €49.37/MWh. On the futures markets, the last settlement price for the Power NL front-year contract was €52.21/MWh, slightly down from 2010 when the last settlement price recorded €52.56/MWh. The Belgian front-year contract price saw deeper decrease in prices with a 2011 finishing with €50.45/MWh, down from €53.58/MWh a year earlier.

The prices on the continental gas markets saw higher prices compared to the previous year. The Gas NL (TTF) spot followed the Power NL spot price trend by experiencing increased prices with an average monthly price going up from €17.36/MWh in 2010 to €22.61/MWh in 2011. The end-of-year settlement price for the TTF Gas futures front-year calendar contract recorded €23.73/MWh, up from €22.48/MWh in 2010.

In the UK, prices followed the same trend as the continental markets. The average monthly Power UK Reference Price Data (RPD) Spot Base Index went up from £41.78/MWh in 2010 to £47.84/MWh in 2011. Gas UK OCM had an average daily index of 56.05p/therm, up from 42.40p/therm in 2010.

Clearing Results

Like the years before, APX-ENDEX continued its clearing relationship with ECC for futures clearing. In 2011, a total contract value of 11 billion Euros was cleared through ECC, notably TTF Gas futures. The spot contracts are cleared by APX-ENDEX itself, with a total contract value of 7 billion Euros in 2011.

The overall value of traded and cleared contracts (futures and spot combined) was a record 18 billion in 2011.

Market Improvements

Market coupling NorNed and Benelux cross-border intraday

The Central West European day-ahead power markets were integrated in 2010 and the NorNed cable was integrated into the market coupling solution in January 2011. The further integration of the markets was facilitated though the launch of cross-border intraday market for trading the Dutch-Belgian border. The further cross-border intraday market will be launched in 2012 when the Dutch Intraday market will be connected to the Nordics.

The launch of the cross-border intraday market, a joint effort of APX-ENDEX, Belpex and Nord Pool Spot, TenneT and Elia, uses the existing Nord Pool Spot’s Elbas trading solution. The solution is a continuous trading system where trades in one country are automatically matched with bids and offers in the other country as long as there is capacity available on an intraday basis.

APX-ENDEX and GasTerra cooperate in launching a Gas Storage Auction service

The first Gas Storage Service auctions, offering a total of 13,249,456 SBUs for sale, were held in April 2011. The gas storage service provides market access to almost 2 billion cubic meters of gas storage and the services are offered in the form of “Standard Bundled Units” (SBUs). The service allows market parties to inject natural gas into or withdraw from a virtual storage facility.

The cooperation between APX-ENDEX and GasTerra was extended in July when the partners announced the continuation of the cooperation for another two years. Another round of auctions was executed in November 2011 and the next auctions are scheduled to take place in February 2012.

The GB power market connected to the CWE market through BritNed coupling

The successful launch of the market coupling between the Netherlands and Great Britain via the BritNed cable took place on 1 April 2011.

BritNed, the new 1000 MW interconnector providing a link between Great Britain and the Netherlands, is a joint development by TenneT and National Grid. APX-ENDEX provides a market coupling solution linking the day-ahead markets on each side of the cable. BritNed links the GB electricity market with the liquid and integrated Central West European and Nordic electricity markets, which together with Great Britain create one of the biggest integrated markets in the world.

The BritNed market coupling helps to create a robust and reliable price index and most importantly, it increases liquidity and volumes traded in the GB electricity wholesale market.

TTF Gas markets see new products introduced

As a result of the new GTS balancing regime in the Netherlands new products were added to the existing product suite of the TTF Gas spot market in April 2011. The new tradable products include continuous hourly market, standard block contracts that mirror peak and off-peak power contracts. On the TTF Gas futures market, new contracts were launched in September 2011. The new contracts include two week contracts as well as additional calendar contracts.

Power UK market experiences new developments

APX-ENDEX launched a number of initiatives on the Power UK market throughout the year. The new initiatives launched on 22 November 2011 include hourly products on the continuous market as well as reduction of the clip size from 1 MW to 0.1 MW, also on the continuous market. The trading results have witnessed a positive response from the market to these new initiatives with new hourly products being traded as well as attracting a variety of market participants to trade the smaller clip sizes.

The new hourly products is an important market improvement, providing the market participants with further opportunities to trade their positions in hourly blocks instead of half hours and therefore increases their flexibility on the market. The new, smaller clip size lowers the barriers to entry through enabling members to trade smaller positions.

APX-ENDEX provides a free access to its Power UK continuous market RPD index as of 1 January 2012. The data available includes the end off day- results for two separate data sets consisting of half hour blocks as well as half hour, 2 hour and 4 hour blocks. The historical data is available for the past 10 years. This is an important enhancement to the market conditions and improves the transparency by making these reference prices available to all interested market parties and end-users.

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