Practice Areas

Energy Trading :: Front Office

• Trading
  The goal of the traders in the areas of Power, Gas, Crude, Products, LNG, or NGLs is to identify, create, and optimize commercial operation opportunities in their respective markets. Traders: - Develop and implement trading, - Execute delivery and risk mitigation strategies to enhance asset value, - Examine and execute regional arbitrage opportunities, - Analyze and react to current market conditions through bidding, trading, and the use of appropriate hedging strategies to maximize profits in accordance with company risk management guidelines, - Traders also monitor other variables that influence pricing, availability, and reliability of power, gas, crude and other energy product sources.
• Origination / Marketing / Sales
  Energy companies need origination and marketing people to craft the complex long-term structured deals that are the mainstay of the industry. These people function in similar roles in the all of the energy fields including power, gas, crude, coal & emissions, and other products. These roles usually function on a regional basis (for example: Mid-Continent in Gas, Eastern Interconnect or Northeast or Southeast in Power, etc). These deals can involve full requirements transactions, asset management arrangements, potential merger and acquisition deals, and long-term purchase and sales contracts.
  
  

  With regard to "Sales" we usually use this term in the context of the retail sale of power and natural gas products to C&I, Institutional and residential customers in those States where retail deregulation has been implemented.

• Structuring / Quantitative Analytics
  Quantitative analysts evaluate and price structured transactions through the creation and use of pricing models, the assessment of the value of potential transactions, and the potential impact of transactions on company portfolio sub portfolios.
  
  

  They work with portfolio structures and strategists, originators and contract administrators, traders, risk analysts, and others. Their goal is to utilize market information and identify portfolio composition and design. They also develop and implement portfolio analysis tools and pricing models.

  Structurer's oversee the disaggregation, analysis, and pricing of risk factors present in complex structured deals. With the quantitative analyst, they develop and test tools and models to achieve these goals. Structurers also oversee, for portfolio management purposes, the development and implementation of derivatives pricing methods for energy markets. This includes structuring and pricing risk management solutions with internal customers. These solutions can include swaps, options, and other derivatives as well as transportation and storage plays. Structurers also develop, enhance and maintain Statistical/Fundamental models for price and demand forecasting and Network congestion. They also develop and execute hedging strategies and liaise between origination, trading and portfolio managers.

  More broadly, structuring can also include:

  • Capital Structuring - the direct provision and/or sourcing of equity, debt, or other forms of capital, retained by the Company or syndicated to third parties.
  • Physical Structuring - tailoring the supply and off-take of physical energy units.
  • Financial Risk Management Structuring - the mitigation of long-term financial risks to enhance the credit profile of a project.
  • Technical Structuring - the enhancement of a project's benefits through understanding and reflecting the impact of tax, legal, entity, accounting and/or regulatory factors on the overall structuring opportunity.
• Portfolio Management
  Portfolio Managers are responsible for the commercial hedging of generation portfolio's, natural gas pipelines, LNG facilities as well as physical and/or financial trading books. In Power Generation this could include the oversight of commercial coordinators, real-time trading and dispatch, scheduling & logistics and analytics. It would also include all forward hedging of power, fuel and emission allowances.
  
  With regard to financial or physical trading books in power, natural gas and other energy commodities it involves the hedging to match company risk parameters. These hedges may include various structured products and derivatives as well as gas/power tolling or reverse tolling arrangements.
• Asset Management / Optimization
  Asset Optimization is often regional with regard to physical assets (Generation assets, pipelines, etc.) This role directs the operational and trading decisions and determines appropriate trading strategies to determine the optimal asset utilization to provide the greatest return on Investment. This role works closely with Origination, Structuring, Trading, Analytics and Quantitative Modelers.
• Other
  Pre-scheduling, scheduling, real-time trading, energy dispatch

If you would like to learn about the specific positions currently available through Manhattan Resources please select Opportunities.