Due to potential abuse of the market power at wholesale and retail market level for natural gas the Federal Cartel Office in Germany prohibited further forward integration of gas importing firms with retail incumbents from 2005/2006 to 2010. The Authority argued that the very few dominant gas...

Natural gas storages may be valuated by applying real options theory. However it is crucial, not to ignore that most evolving gas spot markets, like the German spot market, lack of liquidity. In this context, considering storage operators as price takers does not account for interdependencies of...