Refining Analyst - Houston

Purpose

Energy Aspects is currently seeking a Refining Analyst, based in Houston, to join our growing global team. This is a fantastic career opportunity for a Refining Analyst, with a practical knowledge and understanding of refinery economics, to help expand the Refining service of a well-respected, established and rapidly growing energy markets research consultancy.

The responsibilities will span the full cycle of our work, from building and maintaining data models and monitoring market developments, through to writing concise analysis and responding to client requests. You will work closely with our Research teams, collaborating closely to decipher different aspects of the global market as well as bringing insight on developments in the refining markets and their relevance for global energy markets.

To that extent, this role will require a deep knowledge of global refining margins, configurations, utilisation rates and maintenance. It will also require solid proven experience of building, maintaining and interpreting yield models to asses refinery steering and marginal economics, supported by an existing network of market participants with which you test your views and exchange insights.

Refining analysis forms part of our oil products service, which also covers the global oil products market and includes separate reports for light ends, middle distillates and fuel oil.

This position will require flexibility and the drive to go beyond the core hours when needed, ensuring we all fulfil our goals. All team members are encouraged to build their professional reputation within the industry and are supported by some of the most well-regarded energy sector commentators. You must be able to work independently, as well as be capable of planning and prioritising to achieve success. In exchange, we offer excellent remuneration, a high-performance culture, with challenging and exciting work.

Duties

• Producing relevant and insightful reports and analyses on market movements caused by changes in refinery capacities and constraints, including up to which point refinery decisions are closely influenced by oil and related market conditions, to highlight challenges and opportunities for traders and optimisers.
• Building and maintaining strong internal and external networks.
• Forecasting and commenting on market dynamics, formally through our publications and on an ad-hoc basis with our clients.
• Keeping updated on any and all latest developments in the global refining industry and subsequent impacts on fundamentals and pricing.

Requirements

• Considerable experience in analysing refinery configurations, runs, and forecasting crude slate intake, production yields, and simple and complex margins at the prompt and across the curve.
• Strong analytical skills with a good understanding of all aspects of global refinery crude demand and consequent production balances – including a strong understanding of associated light and heavy crudes, light ends, middle distillates and fuel oil markets, as well as trade flow dynamics.
• Sound understanding of crude characteristics, key aspects of product blending and associated economics.
• Knowledge of oil trading markets.
• Refinery unit modelling skills and understanding of refinery processes, configuration, scheduling and constraints.
• Strong written English and ability to quickly formulate and communicate views in a clear and concise manner.
• Experienced and dynamic presentation skills to large and small groups.
• A strong eye for detail and drive to ensure content published is client ready and follows the company’s strong ethos.

Desirable skills

• Prior role in refining sector including working in an Economics and Scheduling type role, with associated skills in planning and/or scheduling tools including LP.
• Capacity to deal with complex, inter-disciplinary topics and ambiguous issues.
  Existing relationships with a wide set of participants in the oil industry including financial/hedge funds, refiners / trading houses.
• Experience in interacting with journalists and broadcast media.
• People Management experience.

About us

Founded in 2012, we are an independent research consultancy that has enjoyed phenomenal growth since our inception, and we have very ambitious plans to continue our upwards growth trajectory. We are passionately committed to providing indispensable and industry-leading short, medium and long-term analysis, and forecasts of the energy markets, that helps our clients trade, invest, finance and plan.

Energy Aspects prides itself in the quality of its work and draws on a wide range of competencies to derive its views. The company is staffed with experts in upstream production, trading and econometric forecasting. It has always maintained a key focus on the geopolitics of the energy industry and the impacts they can have in shaping global markets. The company has in recent years acquired several firms to enhance its position in energy market consultancy including Medley Global Advisors (2020), OilX (2022) and INAS (2023) bringing additional expertise in macro trends, oil market data and paper positioning into the group. The company is also growing its offering to clients on the energy transition providing the tradeable insights on long-term trends.

Culture & benefits

With accreditation from Best Companies, we understand the importance of workplace engagement and holding sincere appreciation for our team. Our environment is characterised by its fast-paced, driven, collaborative, and dynamic ethos. Recognising and rewarding contributions that have played a part in our remarkable journey of growth.

 We build our organisation with community in mind. With a range of group events, we build a social and dynamic culture, that allows people to be at their best, both on the job and off.

 Our compensation packages include a discretionary annual bonus, a company share options scheme, private health insurance, generous 401k matching contributions, subsidised gym membership and considerable holiday time.

 Energy Aspects is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and promotes diversity within its workforce. As an international business we are determined that suitably qualified persons will never receive less favourable treatment on the grounds of gender, age, disability, religion, belief, sexual orientation, marital status, race, veteran status or any other basis covered by appropriate law.