Often billed as the arena for the trader’s trader, energy futures display certain fundamentals that set them apart from other commodities trading. Indeed, very literally what fuels the world, energy futures trading is a game with high stakes, as it deals in non-renewable resources.

Sugar and wheat can be seasonally cultivated, but oil and gas reserves need to be discovered and extracted as a single project before moving on. Once lifted, oil, gas and coal will never be replenished in a meaningful time frame. As a result, these commodities remain highly desirable and are readily impacted by global events.

In a way, this makes energy commodities "easy" to trade. Business doesn't get better than selling everything one produce. No one dumps unwanted oil. On the other hand, by the exact same token the arena is equally fraught too. As such essential, basic inputs into every nation's well-being, traders encounter strong underpinning alongside bold moves in the energy commodities markets.

All valuable commodities demonstrate that value in trade. Only energy commodities, however, face a market hunger that outstrips current demand. Although the savvy of some regulation on price and supply exists, all energy commodities are hotly contested, albeit with a fairly stable range. There exists a low-key but persistent wrestling for options on energy commodities, making for the kind of trading opportunities only market volatility can present.

The energy markets typically manifest an absence of radical price spikes, due to constant demand and the potential for serious social fallout in the event of short supply. To some degree oil, coal and gas make everyone a gentleman. Vested interests have also struck a fine balance between supply, demand and price, not looking to spur competitive alternative energy sources any more than necessary. We might all need cleaner and more abundant energy, but there's no sense in rocking the boat if you're BP, for example.

More than any other commodity, fossil fuels impact democratically on most human lives on earth. The price of these fuels have an impact on the cost of mobility clothing, groceries, and our connectivity to an online world.

Especially in Northern climates, commercial and residential heating and cooling are also hugely impacted by energy commodities' availability and price. A constant dynamic with this commodities trade is the fact that these resources are expensive to both discover and extract. As resources shrink, improved technologies allow for easier discovery and more efficient extraction, but the constant backdrop of scarcity persistently offsets downward pressure on prices that these improvements might enable.

Likewise, developed countries' shift toward clean energy presents a massive investment and growth arena. From a volatile yet broadly known marketplace, population growth and widespread urbanisation in India and China, for example, might yet prove to be the principal driver of the biggest shift yet in energy commodities.

It is unknown as to when and to what extent renewable energy will come to usurp fossil fuels as the world’s driver, but the current predictions seem unavoidable. Savvy traders keep tabs on global demand and imagined scarcity, as they are fundamentals of trading energy futures and options. As resources dwindle or become more far-flung and expensive to extract, the population dynamics of the globe are set to compound the current homeostasis, and have an enormous impact on energy commodity prices going forward.