It is a rare but always eye-opening experience to attend an event at which top traders discuss markets in a public forum. Rare, because they are not often able to get away from their desks: eye-opening, because some traders inhabit a strange morality- and value-free zone where everything is viewed through the twin lenses of risk and reward.

So it was that during the FIA and FOA’s Futures Week in June last year, three senior energy traders were asked for their views on the likely chances of