Anonymous matching for European gas markets – patented, built and ready to transfer.
The complete Route4Gas intellectual property is available as one package: a granted US patent with its European family, an optimisation engine that turns hidden positions into swaps and EFP deals, and the 2026 software built for energy brokers.
Granted in 2023, plus EP, PCT and NL filings. Protects anonymous matching under confidential credit limits.
Finds swaps, EFP deals and multi-party loops across hubs, products and transport routes.
Brokers as first-line users, today’s market topology, a new technology stack with AI modules.
Gas companies lose margin on deals that are never found
Matching positions exist across the market every day. Nobody sees them, because the data is split across systems and nobody wants to show it to competitors.
Liquidity gaps
In the morning, at lunch and at the end of the day liquidity drops: fewer counterparties, wider spreads, more expensive balancing.
Costly transport
Positions in different market areas are balanced by booking pipeline capacity – even when a swap with another company would make the transport unnecessary.
Confidentiality
Large positions and credit limits are commercially sensitive. Swaps and multi-party loops that would benefit everyone stay hidden.
One optimisation round: from hidden positions to executable deals
Participants submit encrypted positions and limits. The engine couples the markets and returns the set of bilateral deals that removes the most unnecessary transport and matches the most volume – within every participant’s credit limits.
Participants
Traders, via their broker, submit positions, flows, storage and limits.
SG360 layer
Limits are encrypted; identities are hidden – even from the operator.
Optimisation engine
Couples markets and finds swaps, EFP deals and multi-party loops.
Deals
Bilateral deals, executed by the broker.
| Position type | What the engine does with it |
|---|---|
| Day-ahead positions | Market coupling: a buyer in one area meets a seller in another |
| Existing flows | Swaps against flows already running, often with no new transport |
| Unused capacity | Cheaper routing via booked capacity that would otherwise stay idle |
| Storage positions | Gas-in-store swaps: storage linked to any market area, without touching injection or withdrawal rates |
| “Missing link” trades | A third party closes an open loop and earns the spread |
| Counterflows and cyclic flows | Opposite and circular flows are netted out |
Prices are fixed per round using a reference-hub methodology (live broker and exchange prices, spreads to the benchmark hub, outlier filtering). The same engine also runs internal optimisation across a company’s own desks, branches and storage.
Before and after: one day of real capacity bookings
Historical simulation on PRISMA day-ahead bookings, H-gas, 1 March 2018. Flows were replaced by swaps, counterflows and missing-link trades.
Additional margin for participants in backtests on historical data – from avoided transport and extra matched trades. On the example day: −150 GWh of transport and about −€144k in cost.
Backtests ran on the 2018–2020 market structure and describe historical simulations, not future results. Sources: Route4Gas backtests and analysis of PRISMA bookings.
Patented anonymity: compute under limits nobody can see
- Each participant sets limits for its possible counterparties and encrypts them twice – only a valid pair of participants can unlock a limit.
- Each participant sends its position together with a decryption key in an anonymous message.
- The server decrypts the limits, keeps only the pairs that verify, and computes the optimal solution within those limits.
- Large positions are matched without moving the price
- Credit limits stay confidential
- Protected by US 11,838,348 B2 and the EP / PCT / NL family
From a trader tool to broker infrastructure
Brokers as first-line users
The broker runs the platform and offers optimised deals to its traders. Traders can still use it directly; execution stays with the broker.
Focus on EFP deals
Exchange-for-Physical deals and multi-leg loops between traders across markets and tenors, built on the trading and credit limits they already have with each other.
Current market
Updated to today’s hubs and topology – for example the merged German market area Trading Hub Europe – and to LNG-driven flows.
New technology stack
Architecture rebuilt on a modern stack, with AI modules added to the optimisation workflow.
One patent family, three jurisdictions
System and method for implementing anonymously constrained computation in a distributed system. Priority date: 27 July 2018.
| Office | Number | Filed | Published / granted |
|---|---|---|---|
| USA | US 11,838,348 B2 | 29 Jul 2019 (PCT date) | Granted 5 Dec 2023 |
| Europe | EP 3 830 731 A1 | 29 Jul 2019 | Published 9 Jun 2021 |
| PCT | WO 2020/022906 | 29 Jul 2019 | Published 30 Jan 2020 |
| Netherlands | NL 2021409 | 27 Jul 2018 | Priority application |
The US patent term runs to about July 2039, subject to maintenance fees. Full patent files are available to qualified parties under NDA.
What the buyer receives
All Route4Gas intellectual property in one transaction, free of the former corporate structure.
Patents
US, EP, PCT and NL family
Software
Version 2026, including source code
Algorithms
Optimisation engine and reference-price methodology
Know-how
Product, technical and market documentation since 2017
Brand
Route4Gas name and materials
Who can use it
Built with the market, backed by the industry
Developed in 2017–2022 by a team in Latvia and the Netherlands and tested with gas traders. Vier Gas Participation – part of the group that owns Germany’s leading gas transmission system operator – acquired 25% as a strategic shareholder.
Interested in the Route4Gas IP?
Leave your details. We respond to qualified enquiries with the next steps and the information pack.
- 1Non-disclosure agreementSigned before any confidential material is shared.
- 2Technical demonstrationA live demo of the 2026 version.
- 3Due diligenceAccess to patent files and source-code review.