Pass the microphone: Chris Strickland to Ben Preston

This month Chris Strickland of Lacima Group puts his questions to Ben Preston, head of power trading at Macquarie Energy, to gauge his opinions on everything from the impact of financial players on energy markets, to Arsenal football club manager Arsène Wenger

Q1. How do you think that financial players, such as investment banks and hedge funds, have changed the nature of the energy markets?

I think they’ve had quite a profound effect on the markets over the last 10 years. If you think back to the merchant energy crisis, the market was shaped at that time by the rush of the banks to fill the gap left by the merchants, particularly in terms of continuing to supply liquidity to those markets. The impact has been far greater on the financial side of the