Czech Republic's MND Group Opens Gas Storage Unit

A division of the Czech Republic's MND Group on October 2 opened a new 100 million cubic meters (Mm³) natural gas stocks facility in southern Moravia, the company said.

The Uhrice South unit, adjacent to MND's existing 280Mm³ Uhrice facility, has already had 90% of its storage capacity contracted until 2017.

According to Karel Luner, the director of MND Gas Storage, capacity holders at the new facility include Czech electricity incumbent CEZ and Germany's E.ON. The capacity was sold via auctions, added Luner.

Interest in the Czech gas wholesale gas market has been growing steadily in recent years. Two brokers now facilitate over-the-counter (OTC) trade for the virtual hub, and volumes dealt on the market are growing month by month.

Vattenfall and Dalkia are two of the Czech Republic's newest members to the state-owned OTE balancing market, which now has 52 members.

With the launch on October 1 of a new Day-ahead bundled capacity product that allows shippers to move gas directly from the Czech Republic to Austria's Baumgarten hub, interest in the market is likely to increase further.

The GATRAC platform also enables shippers in Germany easier access into the Czech Republic, so the new addition of the Baumgarten capacity product should allow traders to bypass the German/Austria bottleneck at Oberkappel.

Operating as one unit, the two facilities at Uhrice have a maximum withdrawal rate of 12Mm³/day. Data on injection was not readily available, although MND did say the new southern facility is capable of switching from injection to withdrawal mode within six hours.

The MND Group is controlled by energy investment firm KKCG, which is one of the companies that has submitted a bid to buy Czech grid operator NET4GAS, itself owned by Germany's RWE.

MND Gas Storage is the second-largest storage operator in the Czech Republic, behind RWE.