Geneva, 20 August 2008 - Essent Trading executed its first power deals in Hungary with Merrill Lynch Commodities Europe Ltd. and RWE Supply and Trading GmbH. The deals for monthly power products represent a milestone for Essent Trading in achieving its ambitions to develop its energy portfolio in the emerging markets of Central and Eastern Europe.

Remco Frenken, Senior Vice President Structured Origination, Central Europe of Essent trading stated: "As we expand our business in Europe, one of our key focus areas, is the emerging markets of Central Europe. Hungary is a strategically important and well connected country for both power and gas. The Hungarian market is less dominated by large incumbents than most of the neighbouring markets. Essent Trading’s experience with long-term asset backed contracts and our cross commodity approach will bring competition, liquidity and transparency to the Hungarian markets and provide the market participant with a broad range of products and services to manage risk."

About Essent Trading
Essent Trading, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland is a prestigious asset-backed merchant energy trading house with its roots in the Netherlands. Essent Trading is recognized as a market leader in energy trading in Europe and has been voted as a top tier trading house by Risk Magazine since 2004. Our parent company, Essent N.V. is the largest energy company in the Netherlands with approximately 11,000 employees, more than 5500 MW of diverse generation portfolio and over 2.7 million customers across the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. Essent is ranked among Europe's leading companies in renewable and sustainable energy generation.