Transparency

International futures market regulators have come out with a report recommending improved transparency and surveillance of commodity futures markets, along with global cooperation in achieving those goals. The latest report hits hard on regulators having access to information on market activity outside their own jurisdictions that may have relevance to their investigations.

One day after the House Agriculture Committee approved HR 977, the Derivatives Markets Transparency and Accountability Act of 2009, Global commodities exchange CME Group on Friday bashed the legislation, saying it would drive “a significant portion” of over-the-counter (OTC) trading offshore and outside of the U.S. government’s jurisdiction.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has extended the time to file comments in the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) aimed at implementing the transparency provisions of the Energy Policy Act (AD06-11) and the staff has scheduled an informal workshop to discuss various implementation and other technical issues associated with the NOPR. The Commission said the extension was in response to a request by the Texas Gas Pipeline Association (TPA). The notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR) would require intrastate gas pipelines to post on the Internet the daily capacities and volumes of natural gas flowing through their major receipt and delivery points. It also would require buyers and sellers of more than de minimus amounts of natural gas to report the numbers and volumes of relevant transactions for the previous calendar year. It also would require each holder of blanket marketing certificate authority or blanket unbundled sales services certificate authority to notify the Commission annually as to whether it reports its transactions to publishers of electricity or natural gas price indexes and whether the reporting conforms to certain standards. FERC extended the time for filing initial comments through July 11. Reply comments should be filed on or before Aug. 9. Questions about the conference should be directed to Lee Choo, lee-ken.choo@FERC.gov, (202) 502-6334.

In what appears to be a response to recent congressional calls for more market transparency and an inquiry into potential market manipulation, the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) said earlier this month that it will require all traders with positions above the standard expiration position limit of 1,000 gas contracts going into the final day of trading for an expiring contract to reveal their complete book of positions linked to the settlement price of the expiring contract.

In what appears to be a response to recent congressional calls for more market transparency and an inquiry into potential market manipulation, the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) said earlier this month that it will require all traders with positions above the standard expiration position limit of 1,000 gas contracts going into the final day of trading for an expiring contract to reveal their complete book of positions linked to the settlement price of the expiring contract.

Power suppliers should keep their eye on the “transparency and fairness” of state-level power solicitation processes in the near term, FERC Chairman Patrick Wood last Tuesday told a gathering of power supply officials at the Electric Power Supply Association’s (EPSA) fall membership meeting.

While the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) efforts to improve the transparency of natural gas production data are “welcome,” the proposed monthly reporting process will be “costly for the industry and will be duplicative of other existing reporting efforts,” according to comments filed last week by an industry coalition of major and independent producers.

While the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) efforts to improve the transparency of natural gas production data are welcome, the proposed monthly reporting process will be “costly for the industry and will be duplicative of other existing reporting efforts,” according to comments filed Tuesday by an industry coalition of major and independent producers.

For Dynegy Inc., it’s way too early to party down, but the shunned wallflower of the energy merchant sector regained some of its former appeal to investors last week following some straight talk from the new CEO. Bruce Williamson, who assumed the helm just last month, offered a salve to the ailing company in his first conference call with analysts, inspiring confidence lacking for months in the former powerhouse energy merchant.