The HC Commodities Podcast

With the launch of the Murban Crude Oil Futures, Abu Dhabi has signalled more than just a wish to price its own oil production. The futures herald Abu Dhabi’s desire to become the next global commodity hub, powered by its geographic centrality, proximity to Africa, legal code and infrastructure. Does the world need another hub? What about the crucial component of talent? Our guest is Mark Cutis, C...

In this episode we focus on the agri traders and agri trading. What differentiates agri trading from the other commodities? Is the recent return to form, after years of low returns, sustainable? Do the agri markets give us a window into the future for the other commodities, with its increased transparency, and consumer demands around sustainability and traceability? And if so, what lessons can be...

Investors, traders, ags, and energy businesses are investing in biofuels. Technology and decarbonization are driving the market. However, policy, crop yields, rising feedstock prices and public perception make it risky. Our guest Walter Cronin, Chief Commercial Officer at Green Plains, guides us through the global biofuels market and where we might go from here. Will renewable diesel overcome risi...

Ammonia sits at the heart of the chemical industry and was the vital component in our first ‘green’ revolution, boosting global food production. Now, Ammonia could sit at the heart of the next ‘green’ revolution as a transporter for hydrogen atoms for fuel cells and as a carbon-free fuel in its own right. This is launching a surge in interest from the energy industry,  just at a time when food and...

Hydrocarbons have been a key driver of geopolitics and globalization over the past century. Even in the past decade, we have seen how US shale production and China’s energy security policies have dramatically changed the world. Now, peak demand and the energy transition is set to upend decades of global policy and economics – with a huge impact on the commodity markets. Will battery metals become...

Blockchain has the power to revolutionize commodity trading by lowering transaction costs, boosting liquidity and, crucially, providing the mechanism to track, price and trust a range of ESG attributes, which consumers are demanding. But what is blockchain technology, tokenization, smart contracts etc? What about regulation, security and power consumption? In this episode we do a blockchain 101 an...

For commodities traders, trading around storage assets is nothing new. The same is becoming true in power. As the generation of power increasingly comes from renewables, batteries are seen as a key tool to manage the associated intermittent availability and short-term price volatility. These batteries provide a growing opportunity for power traders with the quantitative and technological capabilit...

We are in the foothills of a commodity super-cycle. Interest and investment is returning to the sector as the narrative of energy transition, inflation driven by policy, and scarcity in the wake of Covid-19, takes hold.  What does this mean for traders over the next year and beyond? What are the trades? In honor of our 50th episode, we are delighted to welcome back our first ever guest John Massey...

Electric utilities around the developed world face fundamental challenges to their business model as the way power is produced, transported, traded, and consumed is changing. Meanwhile, investors and policies demand rapid reductions in carbon emissions, rendering existing generation assets liabilities and promoting less consumption. Visibility to the customer is more crucial than ever to balance l...

Institutional investors and family offices want to invest in commodity hedge funds, as the narrative of the super-cycle and inflation drives both interest and return to form. Ryan Duncan of Bridge Alternatives  provides his unique insider view of hedge funds’ performance in commodities over the past two decades and what themes and lessons can be identified for both the traders and investors. Will...

Lithium-ion batteries are the platform technology of electric revolution. The cells are standardized, produced under long-term supply contracts and demand is stratospheric. There is little free supply and delivery is in the future, with mega factories taking four years to build. The products themselves go into EVs and the power industry itself. Will batteries be the ultimate commodity of the futur...

What will the commodity trading platform be like in 2030? In this episode, we examine ongoing change and trends in our sector and look at how these may play out over the next decade. We are in for some radical changes according to our guest who has spent significant time working on this subject. David Rae, BP’s former CIO Global Oil Trading and Head of Digital Innovation for Trading, guides us thr...

In this episode, we do a deep dive into renewable diesel where the ag and energy worlds collide. Renewable diesel is currently being hailed as a key tool in the energy transition, tackling hard to abate fuels like aviation. Refiners are announcing big investments globally and both ag and energy traders are entering the feedstock space - where prices have risen dramatically. We start from the begin...

In this episode, Laurent Segalen, clean energy banker, trader, investor, and co-host of the Redefining Energy Podcast , joins us to discuss European power trading. Why is there a resurgence in power trading? Where are the opportunities now and, in the future, and who will be participating? We follow the story of power trading in Europe from the salad days of the 2000s driven by deregulation, throu...

Commodity Trading Risk Management systems sit at the heart of any commodity trading enterprise. Their design and implementation has been a huge source of pride for some, frustration for others and cost for all in the sector over the past 20 years. However, the role of a CTRM is changing with the broader digitization of the commodity sector itself. Now, CTRMs are becoming the digital core of an org...

Globally, we have begun the transformation to the lithium-ion Economy. Mega battery factories are growing exponentially. The problem is lithium supply. Mining is constrained by available ores and multiyear start up times. Chemical processing and cathode production is technically challenging, environmentally impactful, and concentrated in China. EV manufacturers are buying all the Lithium supply th...

In this episode we dig into rare earth metals - key elements for everyday technologies but also vital to the energy transition from electric motors to wind turbines. Beyond this, these elements have become of strategic national importance. We examine the supply chain and market structure, both historically with its booms and busts and whether the next cycle will be different and why. We also look...

The atmosphere has too much carbon. This poses an existential threat to society and to the businesses emitting it, unless they start to capture it. Tackling carbon is one of the biggest challenges (and opportunities) in the commodities sector. Neo-classical economics suggest we put a price on carbon and let markets sort it all out. Unfortunately, the reality is so much more complicated – from geop...

In this episode, Javier Blas and Jack Farchy join us to talk about their new book, The World for Sale . The book spans the history of the rise of the independent commodity traders, their phenomenal success, and their impact on the modern world. Our guests walk us through the big themes in the book, the events and participants in the last commodity super cycle, and the challenges that lie ahead for...

Measuring risk is at the core commodity trading and Value At Risk is its most common expression. However, as frequent outsized and unexpected losses, stop outs and personnel departures attest, all our tools, especially VaR, are imperfect. How is risk measured and why do we get it wrong? What makes a good risk framework and what is the future of capturing market and other sources of risk in a digit...

In this episode Jeff Currie, Global Head of Commodity Research at Goldman Sachs, walks us through the drivers and consequences of the coming commodity super-cycle. Over the next decade, redistributive policies, energy transition and the search for new sources of old and new economy commodities will drive a macro shift in prices across all verticals. What will this mean for the sector, commodity tr...

The commodities sector is rich, of strategic national interest, at the center of geopolitics, and environmentally impactful. Thus, it is a focal target for cyber-attacks from criminals, national actors, hacktivists and others. As the sector digitizes, the threat and potential risks are only increasing. The threat posed and the responses required is a board level conversation for many companies - a...

Our guest, Arcady Sosinov, CEO and Founder of Freewire Technologies, believes Electric Vehicles present the biggest industrial change and opportunity in our lifetimes. With most major automobile manufacturers announcing phasing out combustion engines by 2035, we have passed the tipping point. This transformation will have profound consequences and disruption for the commodities sector from the imp...

Commodities trading has always been about having an informational edge. About having better data. With digitalization, data is now produced in exponentially larger quantities and so has our capacity to process it. With digitalization, data is now produced in exponentially larger quantities and so has our capacity to process it. Traders are spending millions on collating and analyzing it. Why are t...

Energy and commodity trading is complex (consider both its physical and financial nature), and so are the rules and regulations surrounding it. Multiple regulators, jurisdictions and standards can apply to a single trade and much is left to the judgement of the actors. But the downsides to getting it wrong just once are enormous for organisations and individuals. In this episode we address complia...