Commodities research house of the year: Energy Aspects

A string of strategic acquisitions between 2020 and 2024, alongside internal innovation, have taken the business model of commodities research firm Energy Aspects (EA) to a new level, catching the eye of Energy Risk Awards judges and securing it the 2025 Commodities research house of the year.

“These acquisitions weren’t just bolt-ons,” says Fredrik Fosse, chief executive of EA. “Each [one] has been carefully selected and deeply integrated to deliver more value to clients. Together, they form a platform that connects fundamentals, financial flows and policy shifts in real time.”

After its 2020 acquisition of Medley Advisors, which provides macro and global policy research, EA acquired It’s Not A Science (Inas) in 2023, which has since rebranded as EA Quant. Fosse says the latter met “surging demand” for real-time signals, systematic modelling and speculative positioning analysis, particularly for traders navigating flow-driven markets.

EA Quant has since been combined with OilX – another 2023 acquisition and the firm’s first major expansion into real-time crude analytics. “OilX strengthened our balances and nowcasting models,” says Nicky Ferguson, head of analytics at EA. In February 2025 it was named an official Opec secondary source for assessing crude oil production and output compliance.

Opec averages figures from an approved list of independent third parties when tracking the oil market and will use OilX’s data in its Monthly Oil Market Report. OilX uses satellite earth observation insights, vessel signals, port intelligence and shipping fixtures to produce highly accurate seaborne flow assessments, even for opaque markets such as Iran, Russia and Venezuela. EA uses this information to essentially fill data gaps, for example, when official figures are published with a delay rather than in real time.

“Being named an Opec secondary source was a landmark moment that validated our analytical rigor and industry relevance. It followed years of methodological refinement and was accelerated by the OilX acquisition,” says Amrita Sen, EA founder and director of market intelligence.

More recently, the 2024 acquisition of MMSA, which provides analytics to the global methanol markets, has boosted the firm’s petrochemicals and transition-linked demand expertise.

Many of these acquisitions also bolstered the firm’s technology offering, which Ferguson says is “central to our value proposition”. In addition to the launch of an AI assistant that generates commentary, charts and data-driven insights, EA offers APIs and Excel add-ins that allow clients to port models and datasets into their own systems.

This approach has built Energy Aspects into “a cross-commodity, cross-asset intelligence platform trusted by the world’s leading energy and financial institutions”, says Fosse, adding that subscriptions across EA’s data and analytics platforms grew by more than 90% in 2024, while retention exceeded 95%.

In April 2024, the firm launched EA Live to deliver real-time analyst commentary during major market events, such as Opec meetings. Sen says usage surged during the recent Trump tariff announcements as clients looked for real-time insight into cross-commodity impacts.

Over the past year, EA’s real-time, independent intelligence has helped clients to optimise their portfolios and mitigate risk amid several major market shifts. For example, EA published a timely crude oil report in December 2024 outlining its analysts’ expectations for Opec+ production. “The market needed clarity on Opec+ production plans amid conflicting signals about potential output increases and their impact on global balances,” says Sen.

Using industry sources, proprietary balance models and geopolitical intelligence, EA assessed Opec+ cohesion and individual members’ capacity constraints to forecast “measured output reductions” while others in the market were expecting increased production and price weakness, according to Sen. “[We] helped traders avoid downside risks and capture upside from Opec’s measured approach.”

Earlier that year, EA analysts used proprietary infrastructure-tracking tools, Ercot wind power modelling and real-time pipeline scrape data to identify capacity constraints set to affect natural gas prices at the Waha Hub in West Texas. EA warned of a price dislocation a month in advance, according to Sen, giving clients time to hedge exposure and optimise physical flows.

In February 2025, EA’s Quant Analytics team warned clients of the risk of a likely price collapse ahead of a sharp sell-off in the Dutch benchmark gas contract TTF. “For several weeks, our models identified concentrated discretionary fund positioning amid deteriorating liquidity,” Ferguson says. “Our clients were able to anticipate the unwind and manage risk proactively – a compelling example of why our positioning analytics are essential for effective risk management.”