The HC Commodities Podcast

This week’s episode is a panel discussion on the US carbon markets, and beyond, recorded at the Reuters Event’s USA Commodity Trading 2022 in June. Our panelists take on the state of the compliance and voluntary carbon markets today. How in the absence of a federal carbon market, voluntary markets are leading the charge.  How are voluntary credits generated? What is legal framework and the nascent...

Blessed by geography and abundant oil and gas, the UAE is adding targeted legal, tax and infrastructure policies to create a commodity trading hubs in Abu Dhabi and Dubai that rivals Singapore, London and Geneva. Timed with the release of HC Group’s editorial on this subject in our quarterly review (available at www.hcgroup.global) , we dig into the rise of the UAE as a commodities hub. What is th...

Do the commodity markets pose a systemic risk to the global financial markets and beyond? A timely look at the risks inherent in the commodity markets and capacity of exchanges, clearing houses, traders, regulators and central banks to manage them. What are the main sources of systemic risk? What would a disruption look like and how could it spread through the broader global financial system? What...

High prices, high volatility, geopolitics risk, liquidity constraints and navigating the energy transition. These are just some of the challenges facing the commodity trading sector that the panelists take on in the discussion, recorded at the Reuters Events Commodity Trading USA event which was moderated by Paul Chapman and hosted by ING. The panel tackle the challenges, their significance and po...

Renewable Energy faces the twin challenges of intermittency and spilled power, both of which drag on adoption and financing. If countries are to meet their climate goals, renewable energy generation needs to accelerate. One solution is connecting renewable power to flexible load, namely data centers meeting the demands of power hungry crypto mining and other applications. In this episode we dig in...

Institutional firms have been utilizing algorithms to trade commodities for years and the adoption of this approach appears to be accelerating.  The scale is such that even the markets themselves may be changing.  Why?  What are the advantages for a trader to distill trades into series of pre-determined decisions? What's the impact? How should (and in many cases are) traditional market participant...

Investment capital flows into the commodities sector have slowed despite rising returns and opportunity. Volatility, geopolitical risk and uncertainty over energy transition have impacted the rate of investment while increasing the need. In this episode, we discuss the cause and impact of this funding gap and what the role of banks is in supporting investment and managing the risks. Our guest is N...

Soybeans have become one of the world’s most important commodities. They feed us, our livestock and fuel our cars. As such they have become central in geopolitics, world trade and food security. However, prices are rising fast in the wake of rising demand for food and fuel, weather impacts of La Nina and climate change and the war in Ukraine. What will this mean for the world of commodities?  In t...

Geopolitical risk is back. Gone are the years of expanding free trade and liberalization of markets. Sanctions on Russia, great power rivalry and market interventions are all disrupting energy & commodities markets and its participants. What are the current sanctions on Russia, What is the short term impact and what more can we expect? What can we expect over the medium term? How can companies org...

Over the last decade, commodity markets have become increasingly financialized with much more granular contracts, and therefore hedges, available on exchanges. Oil is the tip of the spear. This is profoundly changing how oil is traded and by whom. Forward curves are now dictating supply and demand. The information produced by integrated physical systems – historically the unassailable competitive...

The adoption of battery electric vehicles has profound consequences for the commodities world. From the components required to build, to how they are charged and more broadly the future of energy management. What is the current state of the market? What new trends and technologies are emerging from wireless charging to battery swapping (and who will provide these services)? What is the role of the...

Europe is in an energy crisis. Power prices have quadrupled, governments have scrambled to provide liquidity to markets and subsidize households. And for the moment, gas is still flowing from Russia. How did we get to this state? What are the impacts and short-term consequences?  Can Europe navigate to the “whole of Europe response” needed or could this test the political union to breaking point?...

In February, the SEC released proposed rules for reporting climate risk and Green House Gas emissions, including Scope 1, 2 and 3. What exactly are in the proposed rules? How likely are they to be enacted?  How will they affect the energy and commodities sector both in the US and globally? How should leadership respond? Now that these risks have been highlighted, will investors drive change throug...

Jeff Currie, Global Head of Commodities Research at Goldman Sachs, returns to update us on the commodities super-cycle. Redistributive policies, energy transition and deglobalization are driving commodity prices higher and higher. However, investment is not flowing into the sector – kept away by the risk and the optics. This sets the stage for a volatility trap that could lead to huge market disru...

The container shipping market, the lynchpin of global commerce, is in turmoil. Shipping rates have increased 1000%. Over the last decade, commodities have been increasingly containerized, as low prices have supported efforts for shipping lines to build market share. Why the turmoil? What is causing the bottlenecks? What is its role in inflation? What does this mean for commodities and when will th...

The commodities markets and its traders face great challenges. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine may tip an already stressed markets into turmoil. The LME’s recent challenges with Nickel has exposed serious cracks in both how markets function and are funded. It has sent a shock wave through the sector, signaling that commodity price risk may have been seriously undervalued. Margins requirements have sp...

In this episode, Daniel Yergin, Vice Chairman of S&P Global, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of The New Map: Energy, Climate and the Clash of Nations,  returns to the podcast to discuss the unfolding energy crisis and the consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. What does the energy crisis (and the broader commodity super-cycle) mean for geopolitics and how does it shape the trends we discus...

Digitization is transforming commodities trading, creating new opportunities and introducing new risks as markets become faster and transparent. What does this all mean for how and who makes trading decisions? How trades are settled and financiers connected? Can this tackle the liquidity challenges the industry faces? What does this mean for organizational design and talent? All these questions an...

In this episode, we do a deep dive in to the world of voluntary carbon credits, which dominate the carbon world  in the absence of widespread global compliance markets. To date the categories, case law and regulation around these credits is complex and fragmented. However, with vast amounts of money flowing into them as companies respond to consumer demand the space is rapidly evolving and expandi...

To date, carbon markets cover only a few geographies and select categories. Yet, they are already impacting how commodities are produced and traded.  Over the next decade, carbon credits will expand to cover all manner of reduction and avoidance technologies,  dramatically changing the commodities world. Low carbon alternatives to existing commodities will flourish and so will the circular economy...

In this episode we return to Hydrogen with guest Erik Rakhou, Associate Director at Boston Consulting Group.  Low-carbon Hydrogen projects, policy support and predictions continue to dominate the news. So does the debate over its role in the energy transition, from power production to use as a fuel. What is the landscape today, the state of the debate and what will the future of Hydrogen be? What...

Robert Bensh, veteran energy executive and Ukraine investor, joins us again in a special episode to update us on the harrowing, shocking and tragic events in Ukraine. What has become of the people and companies that Robert partners with? What is happening with Ukraine's energy sector today?  What can be done to help Ukraine? What are the immediate and long-term consequences of the resulting sancti...

Demand for food is growing, and changing, with population increases and demographic change. At the same time, energy transition is creating an insatiable appetite for agricultural products. To date, advances in agri-technology and an efficient global trade has kept prices stable and inflation low. Is this now under threat as inflation takes grip? What is driving demand and how is it changing? Will...

At the end of the last decade, Investment Banks dominated commodity trading. The best results, the biggest seats and the best paid. A few short years later and the majority had scaled back or exited. Why? What drove their success and their exit. Now, in the foothills of a commodity super-cycle and the volatility of the energy transition will we see the banks return? The 2021 results, matching the...

Trillions of dollars will be needed to transition the global industrial base away from fossil fuels. Unlike the digital revolution, this will be capital intensive and technologically diverse – many of such technologies may be transitory themselves. So, what is the role of the capital markets and the financial institutions that facilitate them? How can investors navigate such a multi-pathed journey...