On 18^th July 2005, the European Regulators Group for Electricity and Gas (ERGEG) launched a public consultation on Gas Balancing. This document:

• explores issues with existing gas balancing regimes including access to flexibility, poor information flows and problems which may exist in the design of existing balancing regimes
• reviews and suggest some improvements to the existing CEER gas balancing principles to try to overcome these problems and to ensure consistency with the draft Gas Regulation.

Regulators (CEER) had already published gas balancing principles in September 2003, which were intended to promote competition and liquidity in the European gas market. Further work has now been undertaken by regulators to better understand how differences in balancing rules may act to distort trade between Member States.

ERGEG invites stakeholders to comment on issues raised in this paper and in particular on the suggested changes to the CEER existing gas balancing principles and the key questions summarised in Annex 1.

Responses should be received by 26^th September 2005 and sent by email to: gasbalancing@ergeg.org

Any question to this document should in the first instance be directed to:

Mrs Una Shortall
Email: una.shortall@ceer-eu.org
Tel. +32 2 788 73 30
Fax +32 2 788 73 50