Commodities a focus at Standard Chartered

Standard Chartered has seen growth in their commodities business for several years but there continue to be signs that they are bringing the senior talent -- including Paul Gregg as COO and now Ashish Mittal taking over as Global Head of Commodities Sales (see related article from AutomatedTrader) -- as well as starting to make the necessary budgeting on the IT side for significant growth and penetration into the physical markets.

Reference: AutomatedTrader, Standard Chartered makes senior management changes

DOE Loan Guaranty Solicitations

The U.S. Department of Energy announced on July 29, two loan guaranty solicitations, the first to support loans for renewable energy and electric power transmission projects and cutting edge biofuel projects that employ a new or significantly improved technology that is not a commercial technology, and the second to support loans for large transmission infrastructure projects in the US that use commercial technologies and begin construction by September 30, 2011.

The lending authority under the solicitations includes up to $2B in subsidy costs to support loans for renewable energy and electric power transmission projects, up to $500MM in subsidy costs for cutting-edge biofuel projects, and up to $750MM in subsidy costs for large transmission infrastructure projects in the US. Funding to cover subsidy costs for the loan guaranties is provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The first application due date under each solicitation is September 14, 2009.

More subsidies, is that what we need to kick start infrastructure changes?