Switzerland's main gas company Swissgas had decided to unbundle its “Gas Network” and “Gas Procurement” activities over the next few years. The group will focus on gas network operations and will abandon the gas procurement business led through its fully-owned subsidiary Swiss Energy Trading (SET). The four regional companies owning shares in Swissgas will acquire shares in SET (EGO will then divest its stake in SET to the other three companies).
Swissgas was created in 1971 as a joint procurement and transport platform for four regional shareholders (regional companies), namely Zentralschweiz (EGZ), Gaznat, Gasverbund Mittelland (GVM), Erdgas Ostschweiz (EGO), to provide its services in their behalf. The group opeartes 260 km of gas pipelines and procures around 20 TWh/year of gas either at short notice on spot markets or through imports regulated by long-terms contracts (13.8 TWh in 2018).