UH Bauer Business School Hosts Energy Trading Conference

Government regulators, energy traders, bankers and others will discuss the effects of the “Dodd-Frank” legislation on the energy industry at a conference Friday (March 23) sponsored by the University of Houston’s Global Energy Management Institute (GEMI).

GEMI’s 2012 Energy Trading Conference will be held at the UH Hilton Hotel from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Registration is required and can be done online at: http://www.bauer.uh.edu/centers/uhgemi/featured-events.php.

Craig Pirrong, a finance professor at UH’s C. T. Bauer College of Business and GEMI’s director of energy markets, said he decided to focus the conference on the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act because of the sweeping changes it’s bringing to the U.S. business sector, including the energy industry.

“Dodd-Frank is one of the biggest things that’s going to happen to energy trading for this year and several years to come,” said Pirrong, a highly regarded expert on commodities and derivatives.

Passed by Congress in 2010 in response to the economic crisis, the legislation amounts to the most significant change in U.S. financial regulations since the Great Depression.

Pirrong said the legislation’s fallout on the energy industry will be costly.

“Dodd-Frank is going to have a major impact on firms throughout the energy business,” Pirrong said. “So essentially everybody in the energy value chain is going to be impacted in multiple ways.”

“It’s going to make it more costly and difficult for firms to manage their price exposures. It’s going to make it harder for them to manage their risks. So that’s going to be the first order of impact,” said Pirrong, a member of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s Working Group on Financial Markets. “In addition, I think it’s eventually going to cause major complications in cash flow and cash-flow risks.”

The conference will open with a talk by Commodity Futures Trading Commissioner Scott O’Malia. The luncheon address will be given by Craig Donohue, chief executive officer of CME Group Inc., one of the world’s largest energy-trading exchanges.

Note: Registration is required to attend GEMI’s Energy Trading Conference.  The cost is $199, with discounts available for UH alumni. The conference is worth three hours of Continuing Professional Education or Continuing Legal Education credit. For more information and a full schedule of speakers, go to: http://bauerticker.uh.edu/events/mar-23-gemi-energy-trading-conference-highlights-dodd-frank/.


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