The natural gas market has grown exponentially in recent years, with dozens of energy companies, brokerage firms, Canada's biggest banks as well as private investors getting in on the action.The larger number of players have helped to make the derivatives market more liquid but also far more volatile with
some of the big boys placing big bets on the future price of gas, based on long range weather forecasts for hurricanes or the amount of gas in storage before the winter heating season.Peter Linder, who manages DeltaOne Energy Fund in Calgary, says
gas traders make up more than 70 per cent of the market, simply trading derivatives for profit without ever actually handling the physical commodity."Many of these gas traders don't know squat about the gas business. They've never worked in the gas business, they don't understand the gas business, but they're probably good traders," said Linder."
They look at technical analysis, weather forecasts, whatever, and they trade on that. And that's why you have these blowouts because many of these traders are very young and have no experience in the gas business."
Last week's blowout was a doozy and will likely continue to reverberate in financial and energy markets for some time. But because of the potentially huge upside in the futures market, it's not likely to be the last time a hedge fund runs into financial trouble fast.reenwich, Conn.-based Amaranth lost about US$6 billion this month trading on natural gas futures. The hedge fund announced late last week that it was trying to stay afloat after its $9.2-billion portfolio fell 65 per cent from bad bets on natural gas prices and the subsequent fire sale of its energy portfolio.
Amaranth's star natural gas trader, Brian Hunter of Calgary, is at the centre of the storm and has yet to comment publicly. While there are no suggestions of legal wrongdoing, it appears that Hunter was involved in aggressive trading in a very risky environment.Last year, it's estimated that Hunter made between US$75 million and US$100 million by betting that natural gas would increase in price.
Fuelled by the after-effects of hurricanes Rita and Katrina, speculative trading by Amaranth and others in its class drove up already high gas prices to record highs of US$15.78 per million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange last December.But they began falling again early this year, as demand plummeted in the wake of an extremely mild winter across North America.Despite expectations to the contrary, the same scenario of short supply coupled with ferocious storms in the Gulf of Mexico has not repeated itself this year, pushing gas prices down to about one-third of their record price in just nine months.
In the past month, in the wake of a much milder hurricane season than anticipated and higher than average storage levels, Amaranth's losses piled up quickly when the fund's large number of natural gas market positions lost their value after prices began hitting multi-year lows.
Carol Crowfoot, president of GLJ Energy Publications in Calgary, says the fundamentals on North American natural gas since the spring pointed to lower prices.
"From a fundamentals perspective, there was a huge risk and it was very, very well known that come late summer or fall, we could have prices doing exactly what they're doing," said Crowfoot."I have to admit it was a bit surprising that they were on the wrong side of these trades for the amount that they were, for the length of time that they were."
Amaranth's trades are thought to have involved extensive over-the-counter bets as it tried to capitalize on the difference in prices between gas in summer and winter months. These markets, unlike U.S.-regulated energy futures markets, do not limit the number of positions one entity can hold in a commodity.
Still, Linder believes the future outlook for natural gas prices is "very positive" with production levels remaining flat despite record drilling, and demand increasing without much new foreign imports being added into the market."We don't have a gas glut, what we have is a gas inventory glut," said Linder. "And gas inventory gluts are very short-term."I think come November or December, with a decent start to the winter, it's going to be double what the current price is." ca.news.yahoo.com