IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ete/msiper/582764.html

A retrospective evaluation of the GDF/Suez merger: Effects on gas hub prices

Author

Listed:
  • Elena Argentesi
  • Albert Banal-Estañol
  • Jo Seldeslachts
  • Meagan Andrews

Abstract

We present an ex-post analysis of the effects of GDF’s acquisition of Suez in 2006 created one of the world’s largest energy companies. We perform an econometric analysis, based on Difference-in-Difference techniques on the market for trading on the Zeebrugge gas hub in Belgium. Removing barriers to entry and facilitating access to the hub through ownership unbundling were an important part of the objectives of the remedies imposed by the European Commission. Our analysis shows a price decline after the merger. This decline suggests the remedies were effective in limiting the potential anti-competitive effects of the merger. Moreover, it suggests that ownership unbundling has generated improved access to the hub. Therefore, the remedies may have done more than simply mitigate the potential anti-competitive effects of the merger; they may have effectively created competition.

Suggested Citation

  • Elena Argentesi & Albert Banal-Estañol & Jo Seldeslachts & Meagan Andrews, 2017. "A retrospective evaluation of the GDF/Suez merger: Effects on gas hub prices," Working Papers of Department of Management, Strategy and Innovation, Leuven 582764, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Department of Management, Strategy and Innovation, Leuven.
    • Handle: RePEc:ete:msiper:582764
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://lirias.kuleuven.be/retrieve/88fb808a-d20a-45fb-bbd5-cd2b818d0a9a
    File Function: MSI_1706
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Franco Mariuzzo & Peter L. Ormosi, 2017. "Post-merger price dynamics matter, so why do merger retrospectives ignore them?," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Competition Policy (CCP) 2016-05, Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    3. Chi Kong Chyong & David M Reiner & Dhruvak Aggarwal, 2023. "Market Power and Long-term Gas Contracts: The Case of Gazprom in Central and Eastern European Gas Markets," The Energy Journal, , vol. 44(1), pages 55-74, January.
    4. Tomaso Duso & Jo Seldeslachts & Florian Szücs, 2019. "The Impact of Competition Policy Enforcement on the Functioning of EU Energy Markets," The Energy Journal, , vol. 40(5), pages 97-120, September.
    5. Olivier Massol & Albert Banal-Estanol, 2018. "Market Power and Spatial Arbitrage between Interconnected Gas Hubs," The Energy Journal, , vol. 39(2_suppl), pages 67-96, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • L4 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies
    • Q4 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ete:msiper:582764. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: library EBIB (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://feb.kuleuven.be/MSI .

    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.