OpenMarkets

Energy markets are heavily impacted by several unscheduled economic events. But factors like big data, infrastructure and politics are also impacting the price, usage and availability of energy in the U.S. and beyond.   AOL Energy’s Peter Gardett recently sat down with Blu Putnam, CME Group’s Chief Economist, at the New York Mercantile Exchange to discuss these factors. The interview was broken into four pieces, which you can view below. Listen to Blu’s insight on the economy, big data in the energy business, energy infrastructure, and changes in the oil and gas markets.

In the above video, they discuss volatility and the downward pressure on energy prices coming from the slowing of emerging market countries and how this pressure affects the U.S. economy.

Companies are now facing a big data problem, Putnam says, “We’ve gone from a world in which finding the data is most important to a world where analyzing it trumps finding it because we all have too much.” He also mentions networking systems and his own “Bayesian” approach to the information overload.

There is currently a huge spread in energy pricing; cheap natural gas and expensive crude oil. As Putnam points out, much of this is an infrastructure issue. With a revolution in energy supply, are the pipelines going in the right direction? Are there enough pipelines? Should transit systems be switched to natural gas?

Putnam and Gardett talk here about different sources of energy and the importance of narrowing the energy content pricing gap.  Putnam also raises the possibility of the U.S. achieving energy independence as it cuts down its oil imports.  “If you take North America as a whole, you get almost virtual energy independence for the continent and that is a game changer for global politics.”