Oil & Natural Gas Trading Orientation (CLASSROOM) - OGT
Course Schedule
| Date |
Time |
Location |
Price* |
Registration Deadline** |
31 Mar-1 Apr 2025
Register
|
8:00am-4:00pm
|
Houston, TX
|
USD 2,750(OGT-AHOU25-03)
|
28 Feb 2025
|
*Prices do not include VAT, GST, or any other local taxes. All applicable taxes will be added to the invoice.
**Please register by the deadline to help us ensure sufficient attendance and avoid postponing the course.
Course Summary
This two-day course covers the principles of oil and gas trading. Delegates will learn the terminology and key building blocks of knowledge for crude oil, petroleum product and natural gas trading, including what a trader’s job involves. Topics explored include trading strategies, market fundamentals, pricing mechanisms, market characteristics and price drivers, and risk management and hedging.
The course is highly interactive, and includes several competitive trading simulations, focusing on different aspects of trading and risk management.
Who Should Attend?
The course is designed for new or recent entrants to oil or gas trading, as well as any personnel inside and outside companies who interface with trading including supply, legal, finance, contracts, IT, transportation and operations. No prior knowledge of trading is required.
Course Content
- Purposes of trading
- Reasons for trading
- Approaches to trading and risk appetite by different market participants
- Oil and natural gas market fundamentals
- Key trading patterns and locations
- Fundamental analysis – supply and demand trends; imports, exports and trade flows
- Uses of storage
- Trading strategies
- Sources of profit
- Positions (long, short) and spreads
- Supply trading
- Price differentials and arbitrage trades
- Refined product blending opportunities
- Storage plays
- Market structure (contango and backwardation)
- Oil market pricing mechanisms and use of benchmarks
- Spot and term contracts
- Fixed, floating, OSP and posted prices
- Crude oil valuation: netbacks and quality differentials
- Price sources and reporting methodology
- Crude oil benchmarks: Brent, WTI and Dubai
- Refined product benchmarks
- Oil trading: value drivers & market characteristics
- Crude oil price drivers
- Refined products market price drivers
- Trading market characteristics for different types of crude oils
- Trading market characteristics for refined products including LPG, gasoline, naphtha, jet/kerosene, diesel and heating oil, heavy oils/bunker fuels, feedstocks and specialty products (e.g. asphalt, base oils, petroleum coke)
- Key differences between major international trading markets – North America, Asia Pacific and Europe.
- Natural gas trading
- Bid week and physical gas trading
- Market hubs and benchmarks
- Physical and financial instruments
- Index transactions
- Natural gas price drivers
- Effects of LNG trading on US domestic gas prices
- Risk management, exposure and hedging
- Sources of risk in trading
- The concept of price exposure and how to measure it
- Value at Risk (VaR) and its use in trading
- The concept of risk management
- What is hedging?
- Choices of hedging instruments
- Strategic and tactical hedging
- Features of OTC and exchange markets, and regulatory frameworks
- What hedging can and can’t do; risks of hedging
- Futures and forwards
- Forward markets
- Futures contracts and exchanges
- Hedging with futures
- OTC derivatives
- Features of OTC markets
- Swaps and their use in hedging
- Definition of basis; use of basis swaps in hedging examples
- Options and their use in hedging
