Romania’s Energy Ministry has proposed setting December 31, 2027, as the expiry date for mandatory forward electricity trading, while keeping existing producer and supplier obligations in place until then. The proposal is contained in a draft electricity-law amendment dated November 4. If approved in its current form, the requirements would end after 2027 rather than be removed immediately.
Quotas and exemptions
Under the draft, qualifying producers would continue to trade at least 50% of annual output through organised markets, excluding day-ahead, intraday and balancing platforms. Suppliers would remain responsible for covering at least 30% of customer requirements through their own production or eligible forward purchases.
The draft preserves exemptions for producers operating exclusively wind, solar, micro-hydro or high-efficiency cogeneration facilities. It would also take account of volumes committed under contracts signed before the ordinance takes effect, reducing the risk of disrupting existing sales agreements when the mandatory shares are calculated.
Direct supply and integrated utilities
Electricity generated by a producer and supplied directly to household customers could count towards the 50% producer requirement. The draft recognises a business model in which wholesale sales are not the only outlet for a producer’s output.
That treatment is relevant to Hidroelectrica, Romania’s largest electricity producer and an important retail supplier. The company reported net generation of 9,328 GWh in the first nine months of 2026. Sales to final customers reached 6,739 GWh, while wholesale-market sales totalled 4,288 GWh across venues over the same period.
Those figures illustrate why a requirement measured against wholesale-market volumes may not fully reflect an integrated producer’s exposure when it also serves its own retail customers.
Market and cross-border effects
Romania’s forward-trading requirements were designed to support market depth and reduce reliance on short-term price formation. Their scheduled expiry could affect OPCOM’s organised contract markets, volumes available to independent retailers and the transparency of long-dated prices.
Ending the requirements would not necessarily reduce total hedging. Companies could continue voluntary forward trading to protect earnings, secure cash flow or meet lender requirements. Traders would need to assess whether supply shifts towards bilateral contracts or internal generation-retail allocations.
A narrower pool of exchange-listed forward products could raise the cost of constructing hedges and increase the importance of counterparty credit limits, collateral and settlement terms, particularly for buyers without their own generation. Cross-border effects could extend to Hungary and neighbouring Southeast European markets through portfolios using Romanian forward contracts alongside HUPX and other exchanges. The scale of any effect cannot yet be quantified and will depend on trading behaviour, not only on the draft’s wording.
Approval remains pending
The proposal remains subject to approval; if enacted in its current form, the obligations would continue through 2027. Producers, retailers and financial intermediaries will need to assess the final exemptions, contract-accounting treatment and potential effects on market liquidity before changing procurement strategies.