Regulating energy futures

摘要

To those real users of oil that suffer from futures prices paying scant regard to the balance of supply and demand, something is clearly broke. Greater transparency would be a start, but the reforms put forward by Gary Gensler, chairman of the US CFTC, are being fiercely resisted. However, the CFTC is homing in on position limits and there are reports that it will reverse its position that speculation has no influence on prices. By all accounts 2008 was a record year. Analyzing the BP Statistical Review of World Energy, BP's chief economist Christof Ruehl noted: "For the year as a whole, Dated Brent averaged $97 a barrel, an increase of nearly $25 a barrel over 2007. This was the seventh consecutive increase in the annual oil price, something that has never happened in the 150-year history of our industry."