| | JANUARY 20168E ERGYTech ReviewHypertransparency in Energy Markets: The Race to Technology-Aided InsightBy Andy Bose, VP & GM, Oil and Joe Held, CIO, Platts Information has Always been the Lifeblood of the Energy MarketsPinned to the wall in the New York office of Platts, a global provider of energy and commodities information, is a faded photocopy of an Oil gram published on June 9, 1923. In this single-page daily newsletter: just seven prices and six paragraphs of news and market commentary. Its big news: Oklahoma gasoline prices were tanking. In its day, this was critical information that helped guide trading and logistics in the oil markets.Today, via smart phones and iPads, is the most recent edition of Oilgram Price Report, which, at roughly 30 pages, contains over a thousand petroleum price assessments and 15 pages of news, commentary, and analysis. The coverage, wide and global, digs deep into the workings of sophisticated oil markets. Companies rely on Platts and the like to collate such information to better understand logistical supply chain movements; inter-commodity values, and pricing advantages in local, regional, and global markets. That old Oilgram is a reminder that the fundamental mission of news and pricing agencies has remained largely the same across time: to deliver the most relevant information in a timely fashion.Technology is Changing the Physical Structure of Energy Markets and Creating Opportunities for the Best Informed Energy CompaniesIn 2015, headlines were awash with news of North America's shale oil and gas revolution . . . the result of technology innovations that allowed commodity producers to tap previously uneconomical reserves and bring these resources to market. The resulting U.S. oil boom triggered unexpected shifts in prices, trade flows, "The emergence of shale oil, together with growing concerns about climate change and the environment, means that the beliefs that many of us have used in the past to analyse the oil market are out of date. We need a new toolkit, a new set of principles, to guide our analysis of the oil market." - Spencer Dale ­ Chief Economist BP, October 21, 2015Separately, the desirability of new models in acquiring and consuming data was also central to a recent industry panel on energy market information management in which Platts participated. With that discussion in mind, we feel CIOs should consider the following. IN MY OPINION
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