The ethanol and biofuels markets are set for major change as tax benefits and other subsidy programs expire and face high barriers to renewal in an era of contracting federal budgets.
The changes for the ethanol business will be “dramatic,” former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle told the CME Global Financial Leadership Conference in Naples, Florida. Keep reading →
Financial innovation and energy trading have regularly gone hand-in-hand, as utilities and other firms constantly seek to hedge their exposure to price volatility or take bets on the perennially volatile energy business.
Open interest, or the number of positions open in existing contracts, hit the landmark one billion megawatt-hours level on the CME Group’s trading platforms this week. CME Group owns NYMEX, a formerly independent exchange that hosts trading in the benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude oil contract. The firm has made a concerted push in building out its energy business across a range of financial products, from floor-traded futures contracts to options and other products across a range of energy commodities. Keep reading →
Energy exchange operator CME Group named a new managing director for its global energy business.
Gary Morsches was named as Managing Director for its energy business today. With 30 years of experience in the energy industry, Morsches will lead the company’s global energy complex which specializes in price transparency for energy commodities and includes trade in the West Texas Intermediate oil futures contract. Keep reading →
Pennsylvania is angling to best the Lone Star state at its own game.
Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett says he wants his state to become the “Texas of natural gas” as energy companies scramble to tap into the Marcellus Shale, a vast reserve of gas underlying about two-thirds of the Keystone State as well as parts of surrounding states. Keep reading →
Crimped credit availability and a delayed economic recovery are being treated as certainties by many energy firms as the prospect of a potential default by the US federal government or a downgrade of its debt continue to dominate political and business news.
“The electric power industry is probably the most capital-intensive in the US,” Steptoe Johnson lawyer Dave Raskin told Breaking Energy. “That means anything that increases the cost of borrowing or complicates the debt markets worries the industry and makes it harder for them to build needed infrastructure.” Keep reading →
The heat isn’t over yet, particularly for power companies handling the first serious and widespread test of electricity generating marginal capacity of summer 2011.
The Southern and Midwestern parts of the US were still under the most severe temperature forecasts in the middle of the week, but temperatures north of 100 degrees Fahrenheit are set to sweep across the heavily populated Northeastern states on Thursday and Friday. Keep reading →
The ‘I’ Word: AOL Energy Week In Review
By Peter GardettEvery few years a word comes along that means more in the context of the day than it usually does in the dictionary; it becomes the catch-all term that encompasses and typifies a cultural moment, and business leaders and regulators find themselves using it constantly as a kind of shorthand.
In the media business that word has been “social,” in the internet business it has been “cloud” and in the financial business it has been “securitization.” Each speaks to an underlying set of assumptions and practices that force change in industries and reflect shifts in the broader world’s understanding of an organization’s role and purpose. Keep reading →