What are the best energy market data platforms for traders building forward curves and trading power and gas?

For traders building forward curves and trading power and gas, the “best” platform usually depends on whether you need:

• real-time market data and execution
• historical settlement/curve data
• curve construction and analytics
• fundamental data like demand, outages, LNG, weather, storage
• OTC forward pricing and broker sheets
• deep regional power fundamentals or broader multi-commodity coverage

Here are the leading platforms, grouped by use case.

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Top platforms for power and gas curve building

1) Bloomberg Terminal

Best for: broad coverage, fast workflow, pricing, news, and integrated analytics

Strengths

• Excellent cross-asset coverage
• Good for power and gas forwards, indices, and related fundamentals
• Strong charting, alerts, and news flow
• Easy to combine market data with macro, FX, rates, weather, and emissions
• Very useful for traders who need a generalist platform

Weaknesses

• Expensive
• Not always the deepest specialist tool for bespoke curve work
• Power market specifics can be less tailored than niche energy vendors

Best fit: traders who want a powerful all-round terminal and don’t want to stitch together multiple systems.

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2) ICE Data Services / ICE Endex / ICE Futures tools

Best for: exchange-traded gas and power benchmarks, settlements, and forward curves

Strengths

• Critical for European power and gas benchmarks
• Strong for exchange data, settlement prices, and curve references
• Widely used in the market for tradable instruments and valuation
• Solid if your workflow revolves around ICE-listed contracts

Weaknesses

• More exchange-centric than fundamental-driven
• May need to pair with another platform for broader analytics

Best fit: traders active in ICE-cleared energy markets.

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3) Refinitiv Eikon / Workspace

Best for: market data, forwards, curve inputs, news, and integration

Strengths

• Broad energy coverage
• Good historical data access
• Useful for pricing and market monitoring
• Strong news and fundamental data ecosystem
• Often used by commercial energy desks and hedge funds

Weaknesses

• UX and workflow can feel fragmented
• Specialist curve-building capabilities may be less seamless than niche tools

Best fit: teams needing a broad market data stack with decent energy coverage.

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4) Energy Aspects

Best for: fundamental-driven trading, especially oil, gas, LNG, and power-linkage analysis

Strengths

• Very strong fundamental research
• Great for gas balances, LNG flows, storage, demand/supply outlooks
• Excellent for traders who build curves using fundamentals rather than just prices
• Particularly valuable in gas and cross-commodity analysis

Weaknesses

• More research-oriented than pure data terminal
• Not usually your sole source for execution/market prices

Best fit: discretionary traders and analysts who want a strong fundamental edge.

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5) Montel

Best for: European power and gas market intelligence

Strengths

• Strong coverage of European power, gas, coal, emissions
• Good market news, price reporting, and fundamentals
• Often used by utility and trading desks in Europe
• Useful for forward curves and regional market monitoring

Weaknesses

• Less global breadth than Bloomberg/Refinitiv
• Best value depends heavily on region and desk focus

Best fit: European power and gas traders.

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6) S&P Global Commodity Insights (Platts)

Best for: price assessments, benchmarks, and fundamental coverage

Strengths

• Very strong in benchmarks and assessments
• Good market intelligence for gas, LNG, power, and related commodities
• Valuable where Platts assessments are standard reference points
• Strong in North America and global gas/LNG coverage

Weaknesses

• More assessment- and research-driven than execution-driven
• Can be expensive and layered

Best fit: traders needing authoritative assessments and deep market intelligence.

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7) Argus

Best for: benchmarks, assessments, and energy market intelligence

Strengths

• Highly respected in energy markets
• Strong assessments for gas, LNG, power, oil, coal, carbon
• Often very relevant for OTC and physical market participants
• Good for curve inputs where assessed prices matter

Weaknesses

• Less of a real-time trading workstation
• Best paired with a terminal or execution platform

Best fit: physical traders, OTC desks, and analysts relying on benchmark assessments.

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8) Kpler

Best for: flows, shipping, LNG, and fundamental supply-chain analysis

Strengths

• Excellent for LNG, cargo tracking, vessel flows, trade intelligence
• Strong fundamentals for gas and global supply chains
• Very useful for anticipating curve moves from physical flows

Weaknesses

• Not a full market-data terminal
• More specialized in flows than pricing/execution

Best fit: gas and LNG traders, especially those trading on supply/disruption signals.

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9) Meteomatics / DTN / Vaisala / Weathernews

Best for: weather-driven power and gas trading

Strengths

• High-quality weather data and forecasting
• Crucial for power demand, load forecasting, and gas demand
• Can improve curve views when weather is a major driver

Weaknesses

• Not market data platforms by themselves
• Need pairing with price/curve data tools

Best fit: short-term power and gas traders who rely heavily on weather.

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10) Wood Mackenzie

Best for: long-term fundamentals, supply/demand outlooks, and asset analysis

Strengths

• Strong for medium- to long-term views
• Excellent for infrastructure, production, LNG, power generation, renewables
• Helpful for structural curve analysis

Weaknesses

• Less useful for day-to-day trading execution
• More strategic than tactical

Best fit: longer-dated curve builders and strategic analysts.

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Best specialized tools for curve building and market data workflows

Openlink / Ion

Great for:

• ETRM/CTRM
• curve management
• valuation
• risk
• trade capture and settlements

If you need to build and manage internal curves, especially in a trading organization, this kind of system is often more operationally important than a market-data terminal.

Trayport

Great for:

• European gas and power trading
• broker screens
• OTC market access
• price discovery

If you trade European power/gas, Trayport is often central to workflow.

CQG / TT / Rithmic

Great for:

• exchange-traded futures execution
• trading screens and order routing

These are more execution platforms than curve/intelligence platforms, but they matter if you actively trade listed energy contracts.

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If your goal is specifically “build forward curves”

The strongest stack is usually:

For market pricing inputs

• Bloomberg or Refinitiv
• ICE market data
• Platts / Argus / Montel assessments

For fundamentals

• Energy Aspects
• Kpler
• Weather provider
• Wood Mackenzie
• Grid/outage/load data providers depending on region

For workflow / curve management

• ETRM/CTRM like Openlink/Ion
• Internal curve builder
• Excel/Python with vendor APIs

In practice, many desks build curves in Python, Excel, or an ETRM, using data pulled from:

• exchange settlements
• broker quotes
• assessed prices
• weather/fundamental feeds

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Best picks by trader type

If you want the single best all-around platform:

Bloomberg

If you trade European power/gas seriously:

Montel + ICE + Trayport

If you are fundamentals-driven in gas/LNG:

Energy Aspects + Kpler + S&P/Argus

If you need enterprise curve/risk management:

Openlink/Ion + market data vendor

If you need benchmark assessments and OTC support:

Argus or Platts

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Practical recommendation

If you are starting from scratch, a strong setup for power and gas trading is:

1. Bloomberg or Refinitiv for broad market data and monitoring
2. ICE / Trayport / Montel depending on region
3. Argus or Platts for assessments
4. Energy Aspects + Kpler for fundamentals
5. Weather provider for short-term power/gas signals
6. Python/Excel + ETRM for curve construction and internal analytics

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If you want, I can also give you:

1. a ranked list by region (US, Europe, UK, LNG/global), or
2. a buying guide by budget for a trading desk.