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O&G Marketing/Scheduling - Career Path

2,308 Views | 13 Replies | Last: 5 yr ago by aduey06
sock123
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exp
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AG
No idea but my buddy does that. He didn't go to college but makes bank as a contractor. Even working overseas in Singapore now. Does very well for himself.
sock123
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Hoyt Ag
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AG
Marketing and scheduling are two different groups, at least have been in my career in midstream. I was manager over Scheduling for one of the major midstreams for a while and enjoyed it, but I prefer Operations much more.
Furlock Bones
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AG
someone interested in my career field. about to head out, but i'll reply with some stuff either tonight or tomorrow.
Dirty Mike and the Boys
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AG
I think this post is getting a lack of traction because it encompasses two seperate groups and two seperate commodities. Gas is marketed and moved in (generally) seperate ways than crude. I work as a gas scheduler for a shop in Houston, so I can provide some insight on that end if you'd like.
sock123
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sock123
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Dirty Mike and the Boys
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AG
I'll give you a little breakdown here just in case anyone else interested in the industry stumbles across this, and I'll leave my email at the end for you.

So, strategies for moving gas are going to be dependent on what your company primarily does. Gas is traded typically between producers, middlers (marketers/speculators) and end users/utilities/power generators. Each of the the 3 are going to have varying strategies to fulfill their gas needs. When a company says they 'market' gas, it generally means that they try to lock in either a producer with cheap gas or a utility willing to pay a premium on delivered gas. They can then fill in the supply or demand side with gas thats pricing them into a profit. Most shops that specialize in this have low risk profiles and focus on arbitrage opportunities. Most major producers have their own trading operations where their abundant supply is 'marketed' and often times leveraged as a way to conduct speculative positions in attempts to add further value.

As a scheduler, I'm essentially a volumetric accountant that ensures buys and sells made by my traders balance out, and that these trades flow from point A to point B on a pipe line. There's tons of nuiance to moving gas, as each pipeline has a specific system to "nominate", or line item transact, gas along their pipe. Each company moving gas on the pipeline has to buy capacity on the pipe, and capacity generally has various degrees of flow-ability. So schedulers are often times working their knowledge of their company's capacity strength and pipeline nuiance to help their traders find ways to generate profit. Generally, marketing and scheduling aren't entry-level positions. I started straight out of school as a scheduler, but I was a unique case in that my good friend had a lot of pull with the company that hired me and I was fresh off a 2nd bachelors in engineering. The learning curve was super rough for me. If I ever have pull on the hiring side, I won't hire someone without any experience. I cost my company tens (possibly hundreds) of thousands of dollars learning the basics. Typically, people start off in the back office confirming and settling invoices with counterparties.

When it comes to career path, generally the next step is to become a physical trader. But depending on shop, one can also step up to become a quantitative/pricing analyst, optimizer, marketer/originator, financial trader, etc.

That's all my late-to-bed self can think of off the top of my head. Hit me up at c gidd8@gmail if you want more specifics.
Win At Life
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AG
That's cool stuff to know, but he asked for "Scheduling jobs at E&P's"; not scheduling for operating companies. Scheduling for E&P's usually means project/construction work and just putting together a Primavera.
Win At Life
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AG
BTW, I college buddy of mine got a degree in economics and has been project controls and scheduling with Fluor for over 30 years. But he has been willing to live overseas for most of that time, which is one reason they like keeping him around in the slow times. If you want to get into that kind of scheduling (which typically goes hand-in-hand with project controls e.g. S-curves and such), I would recommend taking classes to get proficient in Primavera. Just my $0.02.
aduey06
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EPC is the project / construction types. E&P is the operator.
exp
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AG
Good info. Thanks for sharing.
exp
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AG
All real world knowledge in here that no one will teach you in college.
aduey06
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I work on the infrastructure side for an E&P. I deal with marketing group more than schedulers so only an outside look at their responsibilities. Marketing works with midstream companies and other third parties to move oil and gas. There is a lot of planning, forecasting, cost estimating and analysis involved. All the transportation and processing fees plus any deducts or discounts that hit the sales price effects well economics. They are putting together contracts and deals to try and make the company the most money they can.

The scheduling side seams more day to day and not longer term sales agreements. They make nominations for sales. The main interaction I have with that group is if we are bringing wells or facilities on at the end of a month or on a weekend.

I think the size of the E&P is going to determine what exactly that marketing group will do because it is a broad range of responsibilitites.

As far as volatility, I dont know if that role is any more or less safe than others at a company. The last few years all groups have seen layoffs.
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