Energy markets at 'inflection point' as reform ushers in new OTC players

摘要

While a sweeping financial reform bill has yet to be approved by the Senate, energy and financial industry sources last week said they are already expecting a wave of new players to begin dominating energy derivatives trading as looming new rules threaten to push the biggest banks out.Businesses that would fall outside the scope of the new restrictions on US banks within the reform legislation - including foreign-based hedge funds and trading companies, US oil majors and the financial arms of agriculture corporations - are expected to make a big splash in the markets that banks have dominated for years, according to Craig Pirrong, director of the Global Energy Management Institute at the University of Houston.