2006 BEGAN WITH Russia cutting off gas supplies to the Ukraine and is ending with governments and others digesting the ramifications of the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook, 2006 and the Stern Review on the economics of climate change. Security of supply and environmental concerns now dominate energy market and political agendas. Debate has continued on a Kyoto successor – following the UN Climate Change Conference in Nairobi (COP 12) on strengthening the framework for the years following Kyoto’s initial commitment period (2008-2012). Meanwhile, oil prices reached a nominal high of over US$78 a barrel on July 14th before coming down sharply in the following months. And two of the most active hedge funds engaged in energy derivatives trading were recently forced to liquidate their holdings after experiencing large losses in natural gas price and volatility spread trades. The European Commission has also been busy in establishing better control of the EU ETS following a price collapse earlier in the year because of the over-allocation of permits. It recently announced real cuts in a number of allocation plans. And in January next year, both the Energy and Competition Commissioners will give their verdicts on how the EU intends to structure energy policy and regulation into the future. Meanwhile, the developing world continues its voracious demand for energy with the IEA forecasting that global energy demand will increase by one half between now and 2030 – an average annual rate of 1.6%. Now in their fifth year, the Energy Business Awards reward excellence in a number of key energy business disciplines – to recognise those companies that are making a positive mark on the way energy business is conducted, trading risks mitigated, precious energy resources utilised, energy systems developed, environmental degradation curtailed, energy technology advanced, and energy production and consumption distributed more efficiently and ethically. Thus, these Awards recognise those companies making a positive impact on energy business developments and the understanding of energy markets. The 2006 category winners, based upon nominations, votes received and the opinions of the Awards Panel are as follows: 3 Excellence in Energy Trading 3 Energy trading was a pivotal business function in 2006 with continuing market volatility in both crude and, more specifically, natural gas. The year started with the brief gas dispute between Russia and Ukraine, which in turn encouraged debate on supply security. Although the Russia-Ukraine dispute was quickly resolved and largely limited to the European market, the importance of Russia’s energy economy to global security forced all economies to address supply security and in turn be more proactive in trading. With gas having a direct impact on electricity prices and also influencing the coal market, due to high gas prices encouraging more coal-fired generation, efficient energy trading had to encompass the full energy spectrum from crude oil through to emissions. Given the need to address energy trading across all products and geographic markets, the winner of the Gold Award had to be a company that excelled across the global energy portfolio and that company is MORGAN STANLEY, which has had a longstanding presence and wide ranging participation across the global energy markets. The size of its business, with fully staffed trading desks in the major energy regions, and its longevity in the energy marketplace enables it to accommodate large-volume, long-term derivatives transactions, which is ably supported by its physical trading capabilities. In an energy marketplace where products have become increasingly interdependent, the diverse trading opportunities provided by Morgan Stanley make it a worthy winner of this year’s Gold Award I Finalists: • APX Group • Gaselys In 2005 Société Générale won this award and this year it is • JP Morgan the turn of its subsidiary business (in conjunction with Gaz de • LA SNET France) GASELYS, which combines industrial and financial • Morgan Stanley expertise to enable it to provide effective physical and financial trading from standard vanilla through to more structured transactions. Building on its strength in the European gas hubs, the company has been able to design market-based structures that extract the value embedded in physical assets and provide flexibility in the underlying electricity, emissions and coal markets. Gaselys has also worked closely with regulators to assist in the development of a more efficient energy trading framework I Commodities Now December 2006 1 3 Excellence in Energy Risk Management 3 Given the similar challenges facing trading and risk management it is little surprise that the top awards in risk management this year are again shared between the same top two companies in the trading category. And just as Société Générale won the Gold Award last year it is the turn of its subsidiary business GASELYS this year. Unlike last year, this year’s shortlisted nominees did not include any exchanges, which could suggest that risk management has become more of a specialised business discipline in 2006, and with the increase in volatility and market complexity it has needed to be. With the growth of emissions trading in increasingly carbon constrained economies, and with the combined challenges of supply security and competition, the need to manage the full spectrum of energy risks has become an essential business discipline. Gaselys is the worthy winner of this year’s Gold Award. Through its innovative derivatives expertise it is one of the few players able to tailor global solutions for its customers, providing energy hedging and optimisation structures, as well as market-based flexibilities on a large span of underlyings – gas, oil, power, CO2, coal – and locations. And from its banking background Gaselys has stringent practices in place to safeguard its clients and its operations, and actively promotes sound risk management practices. Its portfolio of risk management products includes physical and cash settled derivatives, and its services include market making on standard flows, tailor-made risk management, and asset and portfolio optimisation. Ultimately the measure of a risk management programme is its ability to benefit clients and one of the examples in this respect was its ability to help a client to reduce its electricity consumption costs by 10% in 2006 compared to the swap the client wanted to contract. The company actively promotes sound risk management practices Finalists: towards its customers by committing itself to playing as close as possible a role in financial BP Risk Manager management and advice on specific energy optimisation issues I • • Gaselys • Markit (Totem) The margin between Gold and Silver was wafer thin in this • Morgan Stanley category, reflecting the excellence of both companies. As • Risk Limited Corp with Gaselys, MORGAN STANLEY has had an outstanding year as it continued to offer its clients a complete range of risk management services that encompassed both exceptional physical and derivative capabilities, assisted by the breadth and depth of its product and geographical coverage. The company has also actively participated in the newly emerging markets and the development of complex and innovative client solutions. Morgan Stanley Commodities has been able to provide a comprehensive energy risk management solution for its clients by leveraging the capabilities of its Global Capital Markets, Investment Banking and Credit Advisory and Derivatives businesses I 3 Excellence in Energy Technology 3 TRIPLE POINT TECHNOLOGY takes this year’s Gold Award having demonstrated its commitment to innovation and performance excellence in providing critical next-generation solutions to the energy sector. Triple Point is the only vendor that integrates, supply, trading, marketing and movement of commodities – energy, softs, metals and others – onto a single platform. Triple Point’s Commodity XLTM is a next- generation solution, built specifically from the ground up for high-volume, complex transaction management organisations. In the last year, Triple Point signed two of the largest global banks (Lehman Brothers & UBS) and several hedge funds – in all, over 25 new and add-on client agreements. “More and more companies are realising the need for a real-time, enterprise-wide, fully-integrated energy trading and risk management system,” says Michael Schwartz, Triple Point’s Chief Marketing Officer. Moreover, “These systems are not optional in today’s complex energy markets and the speed an organisation moves to a next-generation platform could very well be the difference between success and failure.” Finalists: Triple Point also re-invests a market-leading 25% of revenue in R&D and recently signed a Global Energy Decisions co-development agreement with SAP AG to deliver Commodity SL™. Since their • GlobalView introduction in June 2005, Commodity XL for GasTM and ‘Visual Cockpit’ have proven • themselves world-class solutions, designed using the best practices of global leaders in gas • Soops b.v. trading and scheduling – and now used by Alliant Energy, Duke Energy, GUVNL, Westar • SunGard FAME Energy Energy and Cinergy, among others. • Triple Point Technology Commodity XLTM is built on proven next-generation technology architecture (n-tiered, J2EE 2.0-compliant, web-enabled, and extremely flexible & scalable). More than 25% of both Global 500 commodity trading companies and Global 500 energy companies use Triple Point