Volcker rule to pummel US energy industry: IHS

The so-called 'Volcker rule', if carried out the way regulators have proposed, will make it more difficult for the US energy industry to access risk management services, harming oil and gas producers, refiners and utilities, according to a study released this week by IHS. Overall, the study found that the rule would cost the US economy 200,000 jobs and reduce real GDP by $34 billion in the period through to 2016 – but some sceptics say that IHS's logic is flawed

Named after former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, the rule was included in the Dodd-Frank Act and is aimed at limiting the kind of risky behaviour that contributed to the 2008 crisis. It bans banks from engaging in proprietary trading, the practice of trading their own money, rather than customers' money. Wall Street has pushed back hard against the rule, arguing that the ban on prop trading will also limit their ability to make markets and provide liquidity to clients.

IHS, the