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voestalpine Establishes Balance Group for Natural Gas
05/15/2012 - The voestalpine Group has established Austria’s first industrial gas balance group for the centralized purchasing of natural gas. The company expects to independently supply all of its Austrian sites with natural gas on demand from 2013 onwards.
The voestalpine Group has established Austria’s first industrial gas balance group for the centralized purchasing of natural gas. By establishing its own balance group, voestalpine expects to independently supply all of its Austrian sites with natural gas on demand from 2013 onwards. The first site to be supplied with gas in this manner will be the lime works in Steyrling.
By establishing its own balance group, voestalpine acquires trading status in accordance with the Austrian Gas Industry Act (GWG), giving the Group greater flexibility, for example in terms of direct imports from abroad, the full supply of sites, or the independent parceling out of quantities between various sites.
The balance group also enables rapid access to large quantities of natural gas within a few hours and simplifies organization, according to voestalpine. Supply contracts with suppliers are agreed centrally and the quantities distributed autonomously, so the entire supplier portfolio and appropriate individual quantities are available to all the sites.
The company explains that as a consequence of natural gas market liberalization in 2002, the so-called “balance group model” was introduced to Austria. A balance group brings together suppliers, natural gas traders, and end users into a virtual group that balances the provision and distribution of natural gas internally. Every network user connected to the Austrian natural gas network that supplies or extracts gas from the network must either belong to a balance group or establish one themselves.
voestalpine is a globally active group with a variety of specialized and flexible companies that produce, process, and further develop high-quality steel products. The group is represented by 360 production and sales companies in more than 60 countries on five continents.
