Energy market research is subscription research and price forecasts for power, gas and oil markets, with software to explore them. Companies pay a yearly fee to read it. Analysts at the research firms study supply, demand, new plants, rules and weather, and then publish what they expect prices to do. Utilities, banks, project developers and traders are the usual subscribers.
A report gives a forecast for each year, and sometimes for each month. The subscriber can also open the data behind it in the firm's software. In it, the subscriber can change an assumption, such as the price of gas, and see how the forecast changes. This is the difference from a news story. A story says what happened, and a forecast says what the analysts expect, with the reasons and the numbers.
For instance, a gas importer in Kochi has to decide whether to sign a ten-year contract to buy liquefied natural gas (LNG), which is gas cooled into a liquid so that ships can carry it. The contract price is $11 per mmBtu, the unit in which gas is priced. Its team opens a subscription forecast and finds the years 6 to 10. The forecast for those years is about $8. If the forecast is lower than the contract price, the contract looks expensive, and the team asks the supplier for a lower price or for a price linked to the market.
The forecasts use data from commodity data management. That product supplies the raw prices, and this product turns them into expectations. The forecasts feed models like power market modelling and tax equity financing software. Traders also read them on a financial data terminal. The prices are kept as time series data. The firm does not trade. It sells its view.