Energy Risk Awards 2025: The winners

Despite ongoing geopolitical tensions, in particular conflict in the Middle East and the war in Ukraine, volatility in key commodity markets dropped significantly in 2024 compared with the previous two years, posing new sorts of challenges to many of this year’s award winners.

According to CME data, realised volatility on front month West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures fell from 48% in 2022 to 29% in 2024, while natural gas dropped from 98.5% in 2022 to 77% in 2024. Agricultural commodities showed a similar picture with volatility on front futures wheat, for example, dropping to 26.6% in 2024 from 51% in 2022.

The relatively rangebound markets and lack of incentive to hedge meant firms such as dealers, brokers and hedge advisers needed to be proactive in their work and their client relationships.

“If you have the type of business that relies on sitting back and waiting for the phone to ring because there’s a big move in the market, you wouldn’t have had a great year,” reflects Benjamin Davis, co-head of global oil in the commodities and global markets business at Macquarie Group, this year’s winner of both Derivatives house and Oil & products house of the year awards.

While the emphasis in 2022 and 2023 was on dealing with volatility, unwinding and repositioning hedges and providing credit, in 2024 a major requirement was making markets and providing liquidity. Many of our winners are being commended for their ability and willingness to operate in illiquid conditions, often in niche markets. Macquarie, OTC Flow – this year’s Market-maker/liquidity provider – and Marex, winner of our Environmental products house of the year, stand out on this front.

The last three months of the period covered by this year’s awards – January 2024 to the end of March 2025 – ushered in a new environment of increased uncertainty as US President Donald Trump rolled back environmental legislation and began introducing sweeping trade tariffs that sent global markets spiralling.

Metals markets were particularly impacted as firms positioned themselves ahead of Trump’s April 2 ‘Liberation Day’ announcement, with copper, for example, rallying to unexpected highs at the end of March. As firms rushed to build copper stocks in the US and adjusted financial positions, the US Comex and LME copper futures spread widened to a record high of 16% in March, well above the five-year average spread of 0.5%.

Throughout this period and the ensuing turmoil following ‘Liberation Day’ our Base metals house of the year, Marex, proved itself a worthy winner, maintaining a continuous presence in the market and executing more than three times its usual daily average.

In this era of increased uncertainty, the role of advisory, research, data and analytics firms, that provide practical and unique insights to help corporates manage risk, is more important than ever. Aegis Hedging, Mobius Risk Group, Energy Aspects, LSEG Data & Analytics and Veyt have all won awards for the innovative work they are doing on this front.

While there has been much talk that the US administration’s stance on climate change will delay the energy transition, the drive to lower carbon emissions remained a strong theme across the awards entries. Mandatory carbon markets in Europe, the UK and the US, as well as numerous regulatory obligations around transport fuel globally, mean firms need to operate in the environmental markets.

Bastien Declercq, head of Marex’s environmental business, believes that virtually all Marex clients will need to operate in the environmental markets at some stage. “We try and cover every touchpoint with our customers … because, quite frankly, everyone needs access to the environmental markets,” he says.

Similarly, Jan Ahrens, chief executive of carbon data and analytics firm SparkChange, this year’s Climate risk advisory firm of the year, believes the increasing price of carbon over the next few years will impact corporates in ways most people haven’t yet envisaged. Financial firms that can correctly price carbon into their portfolios now will have a big advantage, he stresses. By 2027, emissions under scope of the European Union Emissions Trading System will have doubled from today and the carbon price is forecast to be between €150/tonne and €200/tonne compared to current levels of around €70/tonne.

“This is a paradigm shift, meaning carbon pricing matters,” Ahrens says. “Everyone needs to take care of this risk.”

While the urgency around net zero and the incentive to use voluntary offsets may have waned in recent months, the voluntary emissions market is still expected to mushroom in the years to come, with demand expected in particular from sectors where carbon emissions are hard to abate, such as iron and steel manufacturing and airlines.

This makes it more important than ever that firms operating in this sector deploy the highest standards and integrity. SCB, our Voluntary carbon markets house of the year winner and Tramontana, winner of our Innovation – Project award, are both being commended for their presence in these markets where they are helping to set and raise the bar in terms of project integrity and impact, and credit quality.

Meanwhile, the energy transition is being felt most acutely in power markets where the spread of renewables continues to be challenging. Many of our winners are helping firms address this, either through technology, like Dexter Energy, or through innovative trades such as Natixis’s virtual battery transaction, or through pioneering battery storage deals like Engie and Intersect Power.

Societe Generale is also commended for supporting the growth of renewables through its innovative financing deals in copper, a metal vital for renewables infrastructure and electric vehicles.

Finally, another major theme running through the entries this year was artificial intelligence. From innovative technology firms to innovative tech projects, such as the one carried out by Centrica, it would appear that the time of pondering how AI could be useful for energy risk managers is over, replaced with a zeal to harness it in as many areas as possible. The articles below contain a string of use cases – see Cumulus9 for example – that are lifting risk management to new levels.

See the winners below:

Sustainable fuels house of the year: Anew Climate

Base metals house of the year: Marex

Climate risk advisory firm of the year: SparkChange

Climate risk research house of the year: Veyt

Commodities research house of the year: Energy Aspects

Commodity and energy finance house of the year: Societe Generale

Commodity broker of the year: Icap

Commodity exchange of the year: Nodal Exchange

Commodity trade finance house of the year: Tramontana

CTRM software house of the year: ION

Data and analytics firm of the year: LSEG Data & Analytics