The company based in Zug, Switzerland, is looking at electricity production assets driven by natural gas and renewables across Europe, Gyorgy Vargha, chief executive officer of the commodity trading arm MET International, said by phone. It’s not looking at coal or nuclear plants.
“We are looking into Northwest Europe with acquisitions or partnerships but our existing sales portfolio is mostly in less liquid parts of southern and central, east Europe,” Vargha said.
MET Group’s current assets include 794-megawatt Dunamenti power plant, the largest combined-cycle gas plant in Hungary, and its first step into renewables is the construction of the 17.6-megawatt Dunai Solar Park, one of the biggest photovoltaic plants in the eastern European nation.
MET, which is active in most European natural gas trading hubs, started trading liquefied natural gas in 2016 with a delivery into Italy. The trader increased LNG imports this year “substantially,” mostly into Spain, as well as into Italy’s OLT Offshore LNG Toscana terminal, the executive said. In 2018, the company’s total LNG volumes exceeded equivalent of 2.1 billion cubic meters, according to the website.
“We also did some cargoes in the Far East – just to get a better feel for the market,” Vargha said.
Source: Bloomberg