IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/enejou/v37y2016i2p1-30.html

The Informational Efficiency of European Natural Gas Hubs: Price Formation and Intertemporal Arbitrage

Author

Listed:
  • Sebastian Nick

Abstract

In this study, the informational efficiency of the European natural gas market is analyzed by empirically investigating price formation and arbitrage efficiency between spot and futures markets. Econometric approaches accounting for nonlinearities induced by the low liquidity-framework and by technical constraints of the considered gas hubs are specified. The empirical results reveal that price discovery generally takes place on the futures market. Thus, the futures market seems to be more informationally efficient than the spot market. The theory of storage seems to hold at all hubs in the long run. There is empirical evidence of significant market frictions hampering intertemporal arbitrage. UK’s NBP and Austria’s CEGH seem to be the hubs at which arbitrage opportunities are exhausted most efficiently, although there is convergence in the degree of intertemporal arbitrage efficiency over time at the hubs investigated.

Suggested Citation

  • Sebastian Nick, 2016. "The Informational Efficiency of European Natural Gas Hubs: Price Formation and Intertemporal Arbitrage," The Energy Journal, , vol. 37(2), pages 1-30, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:enejou:v:37:y:2016:i:2:p:1-30
    DOI: 10.5547/01956574.37.2.snic
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5547/01956574.37.2.snic
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.5547/01956574.37.2.snic?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Root, Thomas H. & Lien, Donald, 2003. "Can modeling the natural gas futures market as a threshold cointegrated system improve hedging and forecasting performance?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 117-133.
    2. Christian Growitsch & Marcus Stronzik & Rabindra Nepal, 2015. "Price Convergence and Information Efficiency in German Natural Gas Markets," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 16(1), pages 87-103, February.
    3. Anne Neumann & Boriss Siliverstovs & Christian von Hirschhausen, 2006. "Convergence of European spot market prices for natural gas? A real-time analysis of market integration using the Kalman Filter," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(11), pages 727-732.
    4. Stronzik, Marcus & Rammerstorfer, Margarethe & Neumann, Anne, 2009. "Does the European natural gas market pass the competitive benchmark of the theory of storage? Indirect tests for three major trading points," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(12), pages 5432-5439, December.
    5. Huang, Bwo-Nung & Yang, C.W. & Hwang, M.J., 2009. "The dynamics of a nonlinear relationship between crude oil spot and futures prices: A multivariate threshold regression approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 91-98, January.
    6. Nick, Sebastian & Thoenes, Stefan, 2014. "What drives natural gas prices? — A structural VAR approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 517-527.
    7. An-Sing Chen & James Wuh Lin, 2004. "Cointegration and detectable linear and nonlinear causality: analysis using the London Metal Exchange lead contract," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(11), pages 1157-1167.
    8. Hiemstra, Craig & Jones, Jonathan D, 1994. "Testing for Linear and Nonlinear Granger Causality in the Stock Price-Volume Relation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(5), pages 1639-1664, December.
    9. Thomas V. Schwarz & Andrew C. Szakmary, 1994. "Price discovery in petroleum markets: Arbitrage, cointegration, and the time interval of analysis," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(2), pages 147-167, April.
    10. Ming-Yuan Leon Li, 2010. "Dynamic hedge ratio for stock index futures: application of threshold VECM," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(11), pages 1403-1417.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Belhoula, Mohamed Malek & Mensi, Walid & Al-Yahyaee, Khamis Hamed, 2024. "Dynamic speculation and efficiency in European natural gas markets during the COVID-19 and Russia-Ukraine crises," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    2. Bento, Antonio M. & Koch, Nicolas & Marmarelis, Zissis E., 2026. "Emergency Response Mechanisms for addressing challenges with high gas prices in international energy markets," EconStor Preprints 337665, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    3. Amina Baba & Sana Ben Kebaier & Anna Creti, 2024. "How efficient are natural gas markets in practice? A wavelet-based approach," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 334(1), pages 623-677, March.
    4. Hudák, Milan & Čermáková, Klára & Kadeřábková, Božena & Popescu, Irina Alina & Balsalobre-Lorente, Daniel, 2026. "From fragmentation to integration: Gas market convergence in Central and Eastern Europe in the aftermath of the EU energy crisis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:aen:journl:ej37-2-nick is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Sebastian Nick, 2013. "Price Formation and Intertemporal Arbitrage within a Low-Liquidity Framework: Empirical Evidence from European Natural Gas Markets," EWI Working Papers 2013-14, Energiewirtschaftliches Institut an der Universitaet zu Koeln (EWI).
    3. Dukhanina, Ekaterina & Massol, Olivier & Lévêque, François, 2019. "Policy measures targeting a more integrated gas market: Impact of a merger of two trading zones on prices and arbitrage activity in France," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 583-593.
    4. Bastianin, Andrea & Galeotti, Marzio & Polo, Michele, 2019. "Convergence of European natural gas prices," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 793-811.
    5. Ekaterina Dukhanina & Olivier Massol, 2017. "Spatial Integration of Natural Gas Markets A Litterature Review," Working Papers hal-03187890, HAL.
    6. Alzahrani, Mohammed & Masih, Mansur & Al-Titi, Omar, 2014. "Linear and non-linear Granger causality between oil spot and futures prices: A wavelet based test," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(PA), pages 175-201.
    7. Shernaz Bodhanwala & Harsh Purohit & Nidhi Choudhary, 2020. "The Causal Dynamics in Indian Agriculture Commodity Prices and Macro-Economic Variables in the Presence of a Structural Break," Global Business Review, International Management Institute, vol. 21(1), pages 241-261, February.
    8. Henryk Gurgul & Łukasz Lach & Roland Mestel, 2012. "The relationship between budgetary expenditure and economic growth in Poland," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 20(1), pages 161-182, March.
    9. Amina Baba & Sana Ben Kebaier & Anna Creti, 2024. "How efficient are natural gas markets in practice? A wavelet-based approach," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 334(1), pages 623-677, March.
    10. Kuper, G.H. & Mulder, M., 2013. "Cross-border infrastructure constraints, regulatory measures and economic integration of the Dutch - German gas market," Research Report 13004-EFF, University of Groningen, Research Institute SOM (Systems, Organisations and Management).
    11. Gurgul, Henryk & Lach, Łukasz, 2011. "Causality analysis between public expenditure and economic growth of Polish economy in last decade," MPRA Paper 52281, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. LI, Jie & HUANG, Lixin & LI, Ping, 2021. "Are Chinese crude oil futures good hedging tools?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    13. Loureiro, Jose Roberto & Inchauspe, Julian & Aguilera, Roberto F., 2023. "World regional natural gas prices: Convergence, divergence or what? New evidence," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 32(C).
    14. Papież, Monika & Rubaszek, Michał & Szafranek, Karol & Śmiech, Sławomir, 2022. "Are European natural gas markets connected? A time-varying spillovers analysis," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    15. Michalis-Panayiotis Papafilis & Maria Psillaki & Dimitris Margaritis, 2019. "The Effect of the PSI in the Relationship Between Sovereign and Bank Credit Risk: Evidence from the Euro Area," Multinational Finance Journal, Multinational Finance Journal, vol. 23(3-4), pages 211-272, September.
    16. Kim, Jaeho & Linn, Scott C., 2022. "Price discovery under model uncertainty," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    17. Thomas C. Chiang & Zhuo Qiao & Wing-Keung Wong, 2010. "New evidence on the relation between return volatility and trading volume," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(5), pages 502-515.
    18. repec:dgr:rugsom:13001-eef is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Raushan Kumar, 2017. "Price Discovery in Some Primary Commodity Markets in India," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 37(3), pages 1817-1829.
    20. Hudák, Milan & Čermáková, Klára & Kadeřábková, Božena & Popescu, Irina Alina & Balsalobre-Lorente, Daniel, 2026. "From fragmentation to integration: Gas market convergence in Central and Eastern Europe in the aftermath of the EU energy crisis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    21. Charfeddine, Lanouar & Khediri, Karim Ben & Mrabet, Zouhair, 2019. "The forward premium anomaly in the energy futures markets: A time-varying approach," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 600-615.
    22. Kuper, Gerard H. & Mulder, Machiel, 2016. "Cross-border constraints, institutional changes and integration of the Dutch–German gas market," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 182-192.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:enejou:v:37:y:2016:i:2:p:1-30. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.