The CTRM Blog

Download: Rationalizing Complex CTRM Technical Infrastructures
Description: CommodityPoint, in our recent study Data Management Solutions, observes that the data management software category is one that has seen rapid growth in recent years, driven by the recognition that there are multiple and specialized issues in the commodity trading and risk management industry that have not yet been adequately addressed via traditional integration methods and tools.

Download: Global Coal Markets – Evolution and Uncertainty
Description: The global coal markets are complex and the influences on price formation are numerous and diverse. While anticipating future price trajectories for any commodity can be a difficult exercise, given the complexities and global market influences one finds in coal, attempting to forecast prices and volatilities can be particularly harrowing. Nonetheless, it is incumbent upon market participants to continually update their market outlook and forward price curves for the various coal products in order to properly manage market risks and exposures.
Short term influences, such as weather driven demand or production/transportation upsets can create fairly significant price movements that may last days or even weeks; however, these price movements are simply “part of the game.” Most traders are versed in reacting to these short term changes and can manage their positions around them without significant financial consequences. It is the longer term that will ultimately delineate between those traders and companies that find success in continuously evolving their strategies and portfolios to meet a rapidly changing market; versus those that did not have the foresight to anticipate how structural changes that are occurring globally and are transforming the market, might impact their businesses.

Download: Managing Complex Processing Agreements in CTRM
Description: Currently, there are about 500 operational natural gas processing plants in the US, processing up to 80 Bcf of gas daily. With the advances in shale gas development, new plants continue to be brought on line; while at the same time, older plants are retired as the conventional natural gas resources with which they were developed are depleted. As producers open up new fields and bring new wells on-line, those producers and the plant operators that service those fields are faced with negotiating new processing agreements that reflect not only mutually acceptable commercial terms, but are also reflective of the physical attributes of each of the individual facilities. Despite much standardization in many parts of the energy value chain, such as NASB contracts for wholesale interstate gas transmission and trading, natural gas processing has remained essentially untouched by regulatory or industry mandated standardization. Processing agreements reflect the reality of the business they encompass – these contracts are extremely complex; each is negotiated with terms that are bound only by the physical constraints of the processing facility. And just as there is no “standardized processing facility”, there is no “standardized processing contract”.

Download: Coal White Paper
Description: In the last several years, new fundamentals have clearly emerged in global coal markets. Rapidly rising demand from China and India, along with the renaissance of coal-fired power generation in Europe, has resulted in significant increases in ocean freight rates and coal export prices. These increases have led to larger trade flows and significantly higher price volatility, yet created a more vibrant international coal market. Although the coal market offers significant opportunity, it is also fraught with significant risks, especially on the operational side, as a result of the sheer complexity of coal trading and logistics.

Download: Navigating UK Power white paper
Description: This white paper reviews some of the challenges surrounding UK Power from an ETRM perspective. There are just a handful of ETRM solutions actually in use for UK Power right now as a result. It introduces Contigo’s EnTrader suite as an addition to this short list.

Download: CommodityPoint Consultants and Systems Integrators SourceBook 2011
Description: The CommodityPoint Consults and Systems Integrator Sourcebook is designed to be a useful and usable resource to help those seeking information and assistance with CTRM software selection or software implementation services or training services, risk management consulting or custom development services. It is a starting point in that process providing a high-level guide to allow you to select a long list of consultants and/or systems integrators specializing in or experienced with energy and commodity trading risk management (E/CTRM) software. IT is NOT designed to be a replacement for your selection process.

Download: CommodityPoint CTRM SourceBook – Q4 2011
Description: The Nov 2011 update of the CommodityPoint Sourcebook. The CommodityPoint CTRM Software Sourcebook is designed to be a useful and usable resource to help those seeking to select CTRM software. It is a starting point in that process providing a high-level guide to allow you to select a long list of vendors that may or may not prove to be capable and competent to supply your solution after you have conducted an RFI and/or RFP process. IT is NOT designed to be a replacement for your selection process. CTRM software is simply too complex to be selected properly without a reliable and complete selection process. We hope the CommodityPoint CTRM Sourcebook will allow you to compile a list of vendors that may include some you might otherwise not have considered or may even not previously been aware of. In that way, we believe it can make your selection process more complete.

Download: The Ancillary SourceBook
Description: Vendors and products of software ancillary to CTRM software – V. 2. July 2011.

Name: The Ancillary SourceBook
Description: Vendors and products of software ancillary to CTRM software – V. 1. Jan 2011.

Download: CommodityPoint Sourcebook v3.0
Description: The May 2011 update of the CommodityPoint Sourcebook.

Download: 2012 E/CTRM Vendor Perception Study
Description: Market perceptions of leadership in various aspects of E/CTRM are useful indicators as to which product companies have developed strong brand awareness and a reputation for producing products that can meet generalized or specific needs of various market participants. However, for companies seeking to purchase a new technology solution, these perceptions should be but an element of a comprehensive selection process that takes into consideration the ability of any vendor to meet the multitude of requirements that one might have when operating in a very complex marketplace such as energy and commodities trading.

Download: CTRM Founded In and Around Business Intelligence

Description: Leading commodity trading organizations know that managing risk effectively demands not just the ability to capture transactions and run risk metrics, but also the tools to enable a thorough understanding of the portfolio: implying the need to have visibility into the numbers and being able to quickly drill down into those numbers to find hidden risks and opportunities. In this environment, trading, risk management, and financial controls personnel increasingly require tools to allow them to quickly identify and investigate those risks and opportunities. In this latest release of CommodityPoint’s Technical Briefing Note series, we look at Woodlands Solutions Phoenix Core product, a solution designed from the ground up to provide business intelligence as a core capability of a fully featured CTRM system.

Download: CommodityPoint Service Provider Study Report – Europe
Description: This report looks at Consultants and System’s Integration firms in Europe.

Download: CommodityPoint Service Provider Study Report – North America
Description: This report looks at Consultants and System’s Integration firms in North America. A follow up looking at Europe will be out in the next 8 weeks or so.

Download: Industry Views Feature – Next Generation CTRM
Description: The views of four software vendors on the next generation of CTRM software.