How Montel Prices helps energy buyers optimise procurement

Who are you and what does your business do?

My name is Katri Evdokimova and I'm an energy buyer in a company that's called Wienerberger Group. It's an Austrian company that is currently present in 27 countries and we produce building materials and for those building materials we need a lot of energy.

What challenges does Wienerberger face in energy markets?

My job is to buy power and gas for all of our sites. I'm doing the physical hedge of both natural gas and electricity and now we also are going into the decarbonisation journey, of course.

My very first month when I started I got an access to Montel to track energy market prices. I use both the market data and technical analysis tools in order to set the hedging strategy.

We of course have a policy and we have specific triggers and actions (such as fixing and unfixing) that are based on the market movements. I'm also looking at fundamentals on Montel to inform how we buy energy.

What attracted Wienerberger to Montel?

So many of your products are just what I need to track prices and other developments in energy markets. It makes it easy to send a weekly management update, get an overview of many markets in one place and also compare current prices with historical levels.

For me, one of the very helpful situations is when I am looking at the spreads between different indices of gas. Wienerberger is located in many different countries so we have to work with different indices of gas and sometimes I need to make a decision on contracts depending on what indices to use. In this case I also need a historical data on the spreads.

By spreads I mean the difference between two gas indices, let's say TTF and THC. With the excel integration, I am able to see years of historical prices. I am then able to use this data to set the strategy for purchasing for fixations, or the spread if my contract allows it. I also use this data to make a decision on what is more liquid and to identify correlations.

I have a file which is automatically updated daily to show me developments in the spreads between different gas indices and it helps me to make decisions regarding the contracts and regarding the hedging.

How does Montel Market Data offer something unique to your business?

I have started using the excel integration extensively, especially now that energy prices are more and more volatile. There is a bigger need for the higher management to have a regular overview of what's happening. With the excel integration, I have created multiple reports and multiple files that are fed automatically with Montel's Prices, so I'm able to provide my managers with an update in literally minutes.

I have to say that I work with three screens and one screen is always Montel so I'm always looking at the market. What is quite interesting is that other colleagues from procurements use data that I provide them in their negotiations of other commodities. A lot of suppliers of various products are introducing an energy surcharge because prices are volatile. The data from Montel helps us see how fair their proposal is so my colleagues in procurement can negotiate those contracts.

What do you value most working with us?

I would recommend Montel to any industry that uses energy and that has to take energy into their production costs. Honestly you need this knowledge or you are not buying energy as well as you could. There are tools to analyse what is happening and you don't need to be an energy expert to use them - you don't even need to be an energy buyer or energy manager to use this data for yourself.