MG’s board blamed the firm’s problems on lax operational control by
senior management, charging that “speculative oil deals . . . had plunged
Metallgesellschaft into the crisis.”5 Early press reports on the incident echoed
this interpretation of events, but subsequent studies report that MGRM’s use of
energy derivatives was an integral part of a combined marketing and hedging
program under which the firm offered customers long-term price guarantees on
deliveries of petroleum products such as gasoline and heating oil. Reports that
MG’s losses were attributable to a hedging program have raised a host of new
questions. Many analysts remain puzzled by the question of how a firm could
lose over $1 billion by hedging.