The Secondary market

TAP facilitates bilateral trading on the secondary market between offering shippers and other registered parties. Shippers can choose to trade all or part of their reserved capacity transfer or assignment. 

Transfers take place via PRISMA. To acquire capacity through transfer, registered parties need to register with PRISMA. 

A transfer can take place in three ways: 

• over-the-counter (OTC) trading, where an offering shipper and a registered party trade bilaterally  
• call for orders (CFO), where an offering shipper submits a transfer proposal open to registered parties and chooses the response it wants to accept 
• First come first served (FCFS), where an offering shipper submits a transfer proposal open to registered parties and automatically accepts responses based on the order in which those responses are received. 

When a shipper transfers capacity, that shipper no longer has a right to submit nominations, renominations and trade notifications for that capacity. However, that shipper does retain all other rights and obligations for the transferred capacity, including the payment obligations. 

The offering shipper is responsible for notifying TAP about a matching transfer through PRISMA. Following receipt of the notification, TAP validates the transfer within one business day. 

For more information, please refer to Section 7.2 of the TAP Network Code.

To trade reserved capacity via an assignment, the shipper and the ‘assignee’ need to complete and submit a duly completed assignment form to TAP no later than 33 business days before the proposed date of the assignment. 

As the assignee assumes all of the original shipper’s obligations under the gas transportation agreement for the relevant capacity, TAP may require the assignee to provide further information to ascertain that all requirements are met.  

For more information, please refer to Section 7.3 of the TAP Network Code.