Cross-commodity hedges

Energy risk management is the principal topic of this paper. Four major subjects are examined: cross-commodity trading objectives (reduce the risk of an underlying exposure in another commodity); portfolio risk reduction (an Alberta power distributor exposed to high pool prices could protect against high pool prices through a fixed price purchase of Alberta natural gas); tailoring pricing to customer needs (sell power to the gas producer indexed to the price of gas); and (4) reducing insurance costs (rather than purchasing downside protection (puts) individually against oil and gas prices, a producer could purchase a basket option). Since the key issue in cross-commodity transactions is the estimation of correlation, it is important to be prepared to alter correlation assumptions. 1 tab., 2 figs