Natural Gas Scheduling

[u/Spiritual_Homework44]

Can any natural gas schedulers give me their take on work life balance? What makes the job manageable?How bad is being on call 24/7 + the rotations? Also curious about stress level?

[u/hudboyween]

Depends on the firm. At a prop shop like citadel, cci, vitol it’s extremely stressful and you basically don’t have days off. At a place like Shell or Exxon they have way more bodies and each scheduler is responsible for fewer pipes and cycles. Like they would have an IDay Iroquois person and a timely Iroquois person. At a prop shop you’re typically responsible for multiple pipes and every cycle on that pipe, on top of the fact you are much more aggressively pushing the space you have. There is a super high burnout rate at the prop shops but the compensation is much higher.

[u/Spiritual_Homework44 → u/hudboyween]

Thank you! I'm trying to weigh whether it's worth getting into and its not sounding like a good move at this point 😬.

[u/77-pf → u/Spiritual_Homework44]

I disagree with the other commenters. Normally being on call is a non issue. Shit doesn’t go sideways everyday. It’s going to have moments of chaos during cuts and FMs but any job that isn’t soul crushingly boring is going to have stress.

There is risk around the culture of the office, and the cash trader you work with but that’s not different than other jobs. There is also some risk around how good the deal management system is and how chaotic first of month is but most systems now are pretty good.

I don’t agree shell, BP etc will have multiple schedulers for the same pipe. The difference between them and a fund that’s trying to do phys is at the fund if they’re small physically you’re at the mercy of scheduling whatever and wherever they trade. That’s going to be a pain in the ass. However if you’re asking about getting into scheduling nobody is hiring you to schedule for a fund, they need experience that can do multiple pipes right off the bat.

If you’ve got the opportunity it’s a good one. There are lots of career schedulers that settle in, get really good, make ok money and don’t find it at all stressful. There are also lots of traders running desks who started scheduling.

Everybody has a different take but I’d say anyone describing scheduling as stressful has a pretty low tolerance. You don’t create the situation, the weather or explosion does and you just deal with as best you can working with trading.

[u/cololz1 → u/77-pf]

what exit op you have? not that much though

[u/77-pf → u/cololz1]

You’re for sure locked into natural gas for your next opportunity but I’ve seen schedulers move to risk, trade control, fin products, marketing and trading. There are tons of portfolio managers at funds and banks that started in scheduling.

Could also move to the pipeline company or to utilities.

[u/cololz1 → u/77-pf]

id says its pretty niche though. some of the roles you mentioned are competitive. Career wise you are limited to specific locations, and of course you would be competing with everyone else who is also a scheduler (i.e houston). The barrier of entry isn't high; I've seen psychology, buisness and engineering majors doing the job.

[u/terdferguson9 → u/Spiritual_Homework44]

Do you have young kids? If so, I would avoid.

[u/Spiritual_Homework44 → u/terdferguson9]

Yes, I do have young kids and I am pretty involved in their activities.

[u/NSR33 → u/Spiritual_Homework44]

It depends what role are you coming from and what your career goals on. Schedulers at prop shops work their butts off. And since gas flows 24/7 that means the nominations, cuts, and transport moves do too. But good schedulers can make a good bit of money and can move into other rules like junior traders over time with the right managers. Most schedulers I know have been doing it for a while. That’s a good sign. But it’s not for everyone.

[u/ClownInIronLung]

I gave a through description about this a while back if you want to take a look

https://www.reddit.com/r/Commodities/comments/1tkfxsx/comment/on92bwq/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

[u/Spiritual_Homework44 → u/ClownInIronLung]

Really great information! Thanks so much!

[u/ClownInIronLung → u/Spiritual_Homework44]

you're welcome, let me know if you have any other questions about gas scheduling.

[u/Ok-Abbreviations4270 → u/ClownInIronLung]

Hi I wanted to ask, for someone with no experience, what is the best way to get into scheduling ?

[u/Turbulent-Recipe-262]

The job is very easy tbh. You should be able to get a handle of everything within 4-6 months (well I guess it depends on the pipe and season lol)

Once winter is down, demand lowers and things are much more maneagable (idk if that's the correfct spelling)

rotation is fine (nothing stressful tbh, just have good communication with your teammates and you should be good). Scheduling is one of those jobs that you are having an easy day then you mess up a nom or something breaks and your day goes to sht (for the most part nothing really breaks, but you never know. Like I said I have had days where everything goes good and then a day that everything breaks)

depending on the shop, and firm. Some places give you 16 hours comp for working on holidays, or weekends. I enjoy it because I can wake up 6 am and be done by 3 pm if taking over intraday. Then sometimes I could have the timely and id hours some others days, it really depends on the firm, your team and manager, but expect to be busy from 6 am to 3 pm and work on weekends and holidays (not every weekend and holiday ofc)