13APR

ACER reviews its own powers and LNG pricing

2 min read

22:33UTC

A call-for-evidence on ACER's investigatory powers runs to 6 May, alongside a new LNG price assessment Expert Group.

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Key takeaway

ACER's LNG price methodology review will shape how benchmark prices are assessed during supply crunches.

ACER launched a call-for-evidence evaluation last Thursday, running to 6 May, assessing the agency's own performance under its expanded investigatory powers granted by the 2024 REMIT amendments. Separately, ACER updated its LNG price assessment methodology and convened a dedicated Expert Group.

The LNG price methodology review carries direct market relevance. During periods of extreme spot market tightness, assessed prices (published benchmarks) and actual traded prices can diverge significantly, as they did during the previous energy crisis when the EU introduced its gas price cap mechanism. How ACER assesses LNG prices feeds into regulated tariffs, storage injection economics, and the reference prices that trigger emergency supply measures. The Expert Group's conclusions will shape the transparency infrastructure for the next LNG supply cycle.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

ACER is the EU regulator that monitors European energy markets for manipulation and rule-breaking. It recently received expanded powers to investigate potential misconduct, similar to a financial market regulator. ACER is now reviewing its own performance under those expanded powers and also reassessing how it measures LNG prices. The LNG price review matters because the price assessments that ACER or its approved agencies publish affect billions of euros of contract valuations across the European gas market.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

ACER's self-evaluation was triggered by two specific regulatory commitments. The 2024 REMIT amendments required ACER to review its own performance within 24 months of receiving expanded powers.

Separately, the Gas Regulation review underway since 2023 requested that ACER assess whether its market surveillance functions are adequate for an LNG-dominated supply market, which requires different data and analytical capabilities than the pipeline-dominated market REMIT was designed for.

What could happen next?

Opportunity
An ACER-published LNG benchmark price, if adopted, would reduce the scope for private price assessment agencies to influence spot valuations during thin-market episodes such as the current Hormuz disruption.

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources from Belgium

Belgium

Primary parallel: LIBOR's transition to SONIA (2021-22) provides a direct structural parallel: a benchmark price methodology dominated by bank submissions was replaced by a transaction-based alternative after the 2012 LIBOR manipulation scandal. ACER's LNG price assessment review follows the same logic: current Platts/Argus assessed prices are based on surveyed quotes, not confirmed transactions, creating manipulation opportunities during thin-market episodes.

Counter-parallel: The oil price benchmark reforms of 2013-14, when Platts ICE Brent methodology was tightened following IOSCO review, show the limitation of methodology reform without enforcement: the reforms reduced the number of reported transactions used in price assessment but did not prevent subsequent manipulation allegations in 2018.

Consensus view: The Council of European Energy Regulators (CEER) published a parallel assessment concluding that ACER's 2024 expanded investigatory powers have been underused: in the 18 months since the REMIT amendments, ACER opened 12 formal investigations but concluded none with a published enforcement decision. The self-evaluation is partly a response to this criticism from CEER and the European Parliament's Industry Committee.

Counter-view: The International Energy Agency's energy market governance team argued that ACER's LNG price assessment methodology review is more commercially consequential than the investigatory powers self-evaluation: currently, EU LNG spot prices are assessed by Platts and Argus Media using proprietary methodologies that ACER does not oversee. An ACER-published benchmark price would reduce trading firms' ability to influence spread calculations during volatile periods.

Key tension: Whether ACER's institutional priority is demonstrating enforcement credibility under its existing expanded powers or establishing regulatory authority over LNG price benchmarks, two objectives that require different timelines and institutional capabilities.

Sources:European Commission

Mentions:ACER →European Parliament →Parliament →Prima →International Energy Agency →REMIT →Argus Media →

First Reported In

Update #1 · Europe's thinnest gas cushion since 2018

European Commission· 13 Apr 2026

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Different Perspectives

Cross-border power traders

The France-Germany day-ahead spread flipped from a EUR 17.20 German premium on 1 August to a EUR 4.15 French premium on 3 August, the same day French curtailment peaked. They cannot yet attribute the flip to curtailment alone, since a like-for-like overnight comparison shows French nuclear output rising while wind fell and demand returned on the weekday step.

EDF

River-cooling limits took 7.6 GW, 12 per cent of its fleet, offline on 3 August, the highest curtailment since the heatwave began, with an easing forecast to 4.3 GW on 4 August and 3 GW after. It manages the cut as a recurring seasonal constraint, expecting it to lift with river temperature, not repair.

Gasunie

TTF, the Dutch hub it operates, drifted to roughly EUR 55 to 58 per MWh across the window, staying inside its recent range through both the German spark reversal and the French curtailment. It reads a flat hub price as evidence that neither event this window carried enough weight to move the fuel leg on its own.

German gas-fired generators

Record German solar of 18,761 MW on 2 August pushed the clean spark spread to minus 18.48 EUR/MWh, a loss-making day, before it returned to plus 16.20 on 3 August. They now price dispatch against post-solar residual load rather than wind alone, since the sign flipped inside 48 hours on unchanged fuel and carbon costs.

European Commission (DG Energy)

Its implementing-measures register logged transposition notices from only Portugal and Slovakia against Wednesday's Article 94 deadline for Directive (EU) 2024/1788, with 25 states silent. It expects the register to fill only gradually, since filing routinely lags legislating and any infringement track against non-notifying states runs on a slower clock than the deadline itself.

Spain's LNG terminal operators

Spain's 9,145 GWh terminal inventory is the largest single stock in the EU LNG network, an option value that can reroute cargoes wherever the winter strip pays best rather than a cavern gas obligation tied to a fixed date. That flexibility matters more as Germany's cavern shortfall pushes more of the winter security question onto import infrastructure.