My experience as an Oil Analyst at an oil and energy trading company

In this article, Youssef LOURAOUI (Bayes Business School, MSc. Energy, Trade & Finance, 2021-2022) shares his experience as an oil market analyst during a summer internship at Petroineos Trading Ltd.

About the company

Petroineos is a joint venture between PetroChina International London (PCIL) and the INEOS Group for refining and energy trading. PetroChina is one of the world’s major oil and gas enterprises and the INEOS is a refining and petrochemical group. This joint venture is a young and ambitious firm that was founded in 2011 with a dynamic approach to business and a strong ambition for long-term success.

In Petroineos, there are three sections which handle trading in different products: crude, refined products, and power and emissions. Petroineos’s annual trading volume exceeds 70 million tonnes, with assets worth around $6 billion and trading revenue in excess of $30 billion (Figure 1).

Its strategically positioned refineries in Grangemouth (Scotland) and Lavera (France), is among the oldest crude oil refineries in Europe. It provides gasoline to both domestic (Scotland and
France) and international markets, while also sustaining local economies. Every year, the two refineries process about 360,000 barrels of crude oil per day and create over 16 million tonnes of oil products.

Figure 1. Petroineos Trading Ltd. key numbers.
Petroineos Trading Ltd. numbers
Source: Petroineos Trading Ltd. (2022)

My internship

I was affected along with seven other interns, each with their own specific project that had to be completed throughout the 12-week internship. The first days were intense because we had to deal with jargon, practitioners’ concepts, and the dynamic nature of the trading floor. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to be supervised by a seasoned analyst during the first month of the internship, which allowed me step up my skills and be up and running for the next two months. There was a healthy mix of autonomous work and fruitful discussions with the other colleagues. This forced me to be independent in my job while also working in groups when required, allowing for some flexibility in how I performed.

The highlight of this internship was the relationships created with my fellow interns. It really helped a lot to make this experience so enjoyable. The teamwork, the feedbacks, the help that was offered among interns was really amazing; it created a strong bond inside and outside the office. It was a blessing to meet and learn from them as they are all well accomplished individuals who have a bright future in front of them.

By the end of my internship, I felt that I improved significantly in terms of notions regarding crude oil market, time management, relationships with my colleagues and good memories overall.

Missions

During this internship, I was assigned to the analysis department, which was in charge of providing reports and market updates for the major commodity markets. I did my internship in extraordinary times for the oil and commodity markets as it was a few months after the beginning of the Ukrainian-Russian conflict. At that time, the world was experiencing a global energy crisis, a shock of extraordinary scope and complexity. This crisis reminded us of the events of the 1970s (Oil shocks 73-79). This crisis had many dimensions, including coal, oil, gas, food security, and climate change. Governments around the world are seeking for an equilibrium that would deliver a good energy mix while retaining affordable and secure resources for their people, not only reducing reliance on a single commodity.

Natural gas spot prices had reached unprecedented highs, the equivalent of USD 250 for a barrel of oil. Furthermore, the crisis had fueled inflationary pressures and raised the prospect of a recession, as well as a massive USD 2 trillion windfall for fossil fuel producers above their 2021 net revenue. In response to energy shortages and high costs, governments have invested well over USD 500 billion, primarily in industrialized nations, to protect consumers from the immediate consequences of inflation (especially in gas and oil).

Keeping this in mind, I was assigned coverage on the impact of Western sanctions on the Russian crude oil market. Every market participant seeked to predict the impact of the sanctions on the number of barrels shipped from Russia.

Is Russia going to reduce its crude oil export since Europe represented alone more than 80% of its exports volume before the war?
Who are the new market players that are profiting from this situation and capitalizing on a discounted Russian crude oil in the international crude oil market?
Are there any patterns that can help in better understanding the crude flows?

Those three questions captured the importance of the analysis that had to be conducted in order to give sound and well detailed answers in order to capitalize with trading strategies that could leverage this information.

The main task was the redaction of the report which was shared across the whole company. The basic idea of this report was to give a micro overview on a weekly basis on the main changes that can impact the Urals market. I was in charge of analysing the vessels movement from the main ports in Russia and capture their discharging patterns in order to extract valuable information into the main discharging regions that are profiting from this market.

I also collaborated on other analyses with another intern from the Data Science department, which involved analyzing alternative data to identify any interesting signals that may be used as a trading strategy. In addition, I shared two further quantitative analyses involving econometric relationships to analyze Russian and global oil demand in analysis to other factors of relevance. The projects were incredibly interesting, and the insights were also helpful in understanding the complexities of collecting insights in an environment where analysts are surrounded by noisy data that must be filtered in order to communicate valuable information.

The main conclusions of the Russian coverage:

India and China as the main actors profiting from the discounted price of Urals

Russia becomes the highest exporter of crude oil to India (Urals crude). The pattern change since the war unfolded. Historically, India imported oil from Irak and Saudi Arabia. This interest is based on the decision by the Asian countries to capitalise on a devaluated Russian oil price in the international crude oil market, which reached at some point of the war 30$/bbl difference with the main international oil benchmark (Brent). According to the Indian energy minister, they want to lock in the best price available in the international crude oil market (Figure 1).

According to US treasury Janet Yellen, this trend will continue, profiting from the western price cap on russian crude oil. G7 countries agreed in September to implement the price cap, which the US government hopes will be in place by December 5 when an EU embargo on the shipment of Russian crude comes into force. Under the mechanism, European companies will be permitted to transport and insure shipments of Russian oil to third countries as long as it is sold below a fixed price — an effort to limit the impact of the sanctions on global oil flows but ensure Russia’s earns less from the trade.

Dislocation of the market between Europe and Asia

Europe decreased importantly its dependence from Russian crude oil after the war in Ukraine. There is a shifting of actors in this market, with Asia skyrocketing demand compared to previous years because of the attractivity of the Urals in the international crude oil market. Also, if we shrink oil price volatility to its components, we see that:

External factors, other than supply and demand, play a more important role now specifically policy issues are more important than ever, accounting for more than 25% of oil volatility
20 years ago we could explain 90% of oil volatility by supply and demand, now this rate dropped to 65%.

Required skills

I would mention two main skills: market understanding and programming expertise. It is very beneficial to stay on top of market news, as it is good industry practice (especially for an analyst position) to understand the many market events that affect the specific commodity covered. As most businesses strive for automation, acquiring and mastering a programming language can only benefit future analysts. It has become a wider pre-requirement for most analyst positions.

Key learning

Key numbers

Some key numbers to have in mind to understand the crude oil market:

Estimation according to a reliable source: 1.43 trillion barrels left in the ground (2022)
Estimated part of oil consumption in most developed economies (around 30-45% of crude oil in the energy mix)
Estimated daily production per day in the world: around 100mb/d
Russia produce approximately 10% of the world daily crude oil demand. Urals production (the most traded grade of crude in the Russian oil market) was fluctuating on average around the 2mb/d threshold

Refinery margins

Refinery margin is derived from the difference between the refinery cost (buying crude) and the profit (selling refined product).

Refinery margin and crack spread

Crack spread represents the differential between the price of crude oil and the price of products refined. It is an industry specific metric to assess refining profitability. Crack refers also to the chemical process of decomposing the crude oil into different petroleum products. As different variables affect the price of crude oil and its refined products, this has an implication for refining margins.

Implementation of a crack strategy

Single product crack: Differential of one barrel of crude with one barrel of refined product
Multi product crack: Use of different refined products to secure a margin

Trading the crack spread

Either long or short crack: If long crack, confident view that refinery margins will strengthen (either crude oil price decreasing or products demand increasing)
If short crack, confident view that refinery margins are worsening, either because crude oil price increase or decrease of products demand

Reading crack spread as market signal

If crack widens, refined products more expensive than crude oil price, market expects that crude oil price will increase (to tighten back the spread to historical norm)
If crack tightens, refined products are sold cheaper than the price of crude oil, market expects that refined products (will reduce production) in order to get more expensive to widen the spread

Why should I be interested in this post?

This post will help any student looking to break into the work of oil or energy trading, but more generally for any analyst position, to have a grasp of the main concepts and skills that are required in the market and have a better understanding of the energy industry.

Useful resources

Business Analysis

Petroineos

Financial Times (2022) Russia becomes India’s top oil supplier as sanctions deflate price.

About the author

The article was written in December 2022 by Youssef LOURAOUI (Bayes Business School, MSc. Energy, Trade & Finance, 2021-2022).