A credit boost for traders

Clearing houses are emerging as a crucial function of energy trading exchanges. John Kennedy explains their importance in terms of a firm’s credit rating

Energy trading and marketing is a highly confidence-sensitive operation – its life blood depends on assurance in credit, sound risk management and strong liquidity. Clearly, scepticism now abounds: counterparties, creditors and the capital markets have seen declining trade volumes throughout 2002, as well as reductions in counterparty thresholds, increasing costs in bank facilities and a sell-off in public equity. These concerns could potentially be alleviated by some combination of exchange and