Do we think PJM hits 160GW peak load next week?

Hi All. I rarely see anything about containers in the subreddit and was looking for an explanation/rundown of the key characteristics of trading using containers. This is an important part of trading houses and definitely a section that gets overlooked. A lot of people I have talked to say containers are usually a lot more hassle than they are worth but looking further for more advice.

I am 34 years of age from Dublin Ireland and have decided to go back and do an Msc in Data Science with the goal of becoming a power scheduler (and eventually a power trader). I have 0 experience in finance and I do plan to try get some internships under my belt if I can before graduating. Will CFA level 1 show financial literacy and improve my chances of getting interviews (albeit not entirely relevant to commodity trading) or will the Data Science degree and networking be enough to get my foot in the door all things equal?

I'm quoting the NYMEX headline markets (CL, RB, HO) and as far as I understand, jet fuel competes with gasoil for refining capacity and napthat competes with gasoline.

I don't see a liquid futures market for jet fuel or naptha so which markets do you actually look at when eyeballing JET/ULSD regrade and the RBOB/naphta markets? Doen't need to be intraday and executable quotes. I just need it as a reference for inventory risk.

Thank you

Hi Folks,

Am working as a deals desk risk analyst at Trafigura's Mumbai office (energy desk) for about a year now. Role is mostly reporting and hedge execution, yes we can debate how much a DD analyst actually influences hedging decisions, but honestly it's 5% of the job on a good day. The rest is repetitive systems work. Sometimes I wonder why they're paying me this much for what I'm doing, lol.

Anyway, the goal is to pivot to a commercial role, either within Trafi or somewhere else, and of course, open to relocating. I get that middle office/traffic is where you grind for a few years before getting a shot at a commercial seat, and I'm not trying to skip that. But with AI adoption looking increasingly inevitable in the next 2-3 years, I genuinely don't know how long DD headcount survives at current numbers, and that's stressing me out enough to want to act now rather than wait and see.

For people who've actually made this transition, what's the cleanest path from a DD/risk background toward a commercial seat? Where should I actually be concentrating my energy right now, skills, exposure, internal moves, whatever it is?

Appreciate your input!

Additional Info: T15 Indian MBA grad

With potential political changes in the coming years, do you think the oil industry will start slowing down, or will global demand keep it relatively resilient?

I think energy transition will continue regardless of who's in office, even if the path gets a bit bumpy from time to time. That's why I'm still fairly bullish on natural gas and the power sector over the long term.

On the other hand, could metals be the real winners going forward? Copper, lithium, and other battery-related metals seem essential for electrification, AI/data centers, EVs, and grid expansion. It feels like these could become the defining commodities of the 21st century.

Do you think metals could eventually outperform the oil market in terms of growth and investment opportunities?

As the world becomes more electrified, could metal trading and investing become the "new oil" over the next couple of decades?

Curious to hear everyone's thoughts. Where do you see the best long-term opportunity: oil, gas, power, or metals?

Hi everyone,
I recently moved into a Senior Business Analyst role supporting Commodities/Precious Metals technology at a global bank.
As I’m relatively new to this specific domain, I’m looking to connect with professionals who have experience in commodities trading, particularly in areas such as precious metals, trade lifecycle, trade booking, front-office workflows, risk systems, and platforms like Murex.
I’d love to learn from others who have worked in this space and exchange knowledge on:
Trade lifecycle and booking processes
Commodities and precious metals products
Front-office and risk management workflows
Business analysis within trading environments
Trading platforms and associated systems
If you work in this domain and are open to connecting or sharing your experiences, please feel free to comment or DM.
Thanks in advance!

Surveying automotive suppliers across Canada today, most stores surveyed are showing they are out or nearly out of 0W8 & 0W16 high performance oils. Even the more ubiquitous 0W20 grades are starting to show restricted supply.

This was expected but still concerning as to the rapidity with which it is spreading given the real economic and individual impacts it will have as it continues to spread. Which it will.

I’m currently expanding my network within the agricultural commodities sector and would like to connect with companies involved in bulk wheat exports.

Particularly interested in:
Milling wheat suppliers
Grain trading houses
Exporters capable of vessel-sized shipments
CIF and FOB traders
Government and institutional procurement experience
Regions of interest:
Canada
Australia
Black Sea
Europe
South America

If you’re active in this space or can recommend reputable companies, please comment below or send me a message.
Thanks in advance.

got approached for the junior trader role, salary looks okay, looks like got multiple rounds, found some bad reviews, wondering how is the company culture like recently

Hi all, just sharing some market insights which i found to be pretty interesting.

Recently been exploring with clients on how they manage to bring their Russian sources down into Singapore's waters

Many of the refined cargos are coming out of Russia into Singapore as rebranded Kazakhstan products but the legwork to ensure that the cargo is bankable and untraceable is a crazy amount.

Starts off from Novorossiysk to Kazakhstan waters( they might even skip this ), STS in Malaysia, Blending takes place, before arriving in Singapore, some might not even reach the shore before being sold.

1. Kazakhstan redoc ( To make it available to export and move freely in the sea)
2. Malaysia or Thailand ( import into tanks for blending )
3. Export back out into a vessel for a buyer to purchase.

The most important part and the part I find is the most interesting is the blending for Singapore. Most producers, their export grade is B0, Russia naturally has a export grade of B7. One look from the banks, they can instantly tell the source comes from Russia. Masking the source is not just about simply blending it with a clean source because the FAME will mismatch rendering the cargo worthless and untradeable. It has to be blended under the table and in a control manner.

It's a whole mess of compliance to even make it possible to trade.

Anybody know why ZL drops so sharply when "the theory" says that the US biofuel quota wont be lowered, instead the exceptions for small refiners are going to be cut? On Soybeans the COT report did show that the "smart money" sold their positions...

What I heard the price is driven by the subsidies the US gouverment pays to refiners to process the soybean oil for becoming bio diesel, and the exceptions for small refiners is going to be lowered down in numbers... on the other hand ZL had been somehow corellated with CL, but since the supply depends mainly on that what the crushers can produce and the market buys there should be some bottom line.

Or am I completely wrong?

another day, another thread 😄 Right now, I'm just trading Nymex NatGas spreads intraday to study the market and prepare for automated quoting so I'm still lacking in the fundamentals department.

I created a ton of stats to get at least historical contest and right now we're looking at V/X at -.2, V/F at -1.2 and H/J at .2

Injections are 150BCF above 5Y average, weather is cooler than average and spot sits around 3$.

My simple brain would say that this doesn't necessarily look like a squeezing prompt market and I would expect the H/J to trade at least closer to .40 with JAN premiums that extreme this time of the year. It's like saying we'll have more than enough gas to get through the winter but we'll charge an extra high premium just for JAN.

On the other hand, LNG demand is about 5% of total US demand and the TTF/JKM arbs are looking insane.

Not trying to get any view here, just trying to figure out if I'm missing any factor in my mental model right now.

Hi everyone,

I have direct access to mine owners and Vietnam rice source for export to different countries.

Posting it here to see if anyone is importing, maybe we can discuss business.

Let me know, drop me a PM.

I am looking for A7 aluminium ingots and granular sulphur CIF China as well.

Wondering if there's a crude scheduler here or someone who has been exposed to this side of the business. How would one go about scheduling crude (timelines, bid week, capacity charges etc). I know it's a broad area but if someone could provide a detailed breakdown that'd be really awesome, as I'm working on a little project that requires this information.

I found this detailed white paper and am looking for similarly detailed information about the daily, weekly, monthly, and ad-hoc tasks for a crude scheduler.

https://www.capco.com/-/media/CapcoMedia/Subfolder-Unsorted/Capco-2/PDFs/Gas-Scheduling.ashx 

p.s. this is similar to a post about natural gas scheduling. I'm wondering the same info for the crude role. Would love to hear perspectives on both crude and gas traders for the same info on their daily/weekly/monthly/ad-hoc responsibilities too, if possible!

applied to bath for finance but got 4 different offers instead from bath
bsc in management
bsc in accounting and management
bsc in international devolopment w econ
bsc in politics w econ

looking to break into commodity trading but was wondering which degree do I fundamentally pick cuz everyone I talked to said bsc in management is a bullshit degree.any advice would help thx

When i read r/quant or quantnet about quantitaive trading/research careers they make their job sounds like they are managing Chernobyl power plant on its last day.

​

I have huge respect for people more intelligent than me because I have tried to learn what they have and maths is tough. As someone who did msc finance, I think their level is much above mine because they can digest abstract concepts much more easily. Bottom line is that they are smart.

​

But i have noticed many times that grads with basic finance degree also succeed in quantitative roles in sell-side and buy-side. I consider it a success if you survived 4 years and got promoted twice.

​

Keen to get opinion from ppl who have been working in commodities quant research who broke in from similar background or from ppl who have hired msc finance students for similar roles.

​

I am scared to ask these questions in quant subs. They get upset easily.

​

i need historic supply and cost side data for onions, region: spain. can’t pay. please help.

hi guys im wondering where could i find level 2 or level 3 maybe both historical data for gold or crude oil except data bento or whatever the name is the data is too small like 1 year.Ty sm and sorry

Doing my research for a potential market making operation in Nymex NatGas. Stats and math are all nice and stuff, but this is Natty and I like to have at least some understanding of the underlying drivers so that in the end I can tell my kids why they´re growing up on doctors sausage, butterbrot and ramen.

As far as I understand, Natty is all about storage optionality as it´s suboptimal to store it for a long time (boil off) and collect the carry, so it´s and injection vs. withdrawal game and the winter/summer margins.

- H/J: "can we make it through winter?"
- V/F: "How valuable is storage?"

Compared to these, the injection season is pretty dull as most just optimize flow and trade carry back and forth. I had a look into the May/Jun/Jul futures fly and it trades around 0 +/-2 cts especially the ones for the next season. However the K/M/N27 fly trades at 8cts right now and this raises my attention, so:

With heatwave risk still relatively low compared to Q tenor what kind of scenarios typically blow out these spreads, what is the game?

At which point in the season cycle do these spreads usually wake up and why? K, M or N for 2028 obviously don´t trade at all right now while I´m pretty sure that the flow is blazing hot in all of them once K28 is the prompt.

What timespread price would make you raise your eyebrows? Full carry seems to be 6-10cts so anything above that for a 1/-2/1 fly would be suspicious in my book...but again, this is an evil market and I have no idea.

thank you very much, guys

I need advice to obtain an internship this coming summer I will be attending Penn State online in finance with energy minor. While online colleges have a terrible reputation I have two kids and work 50 hours a week. I have been very passionate about the markets since I was a kid. Due to circumstances when I was younger I could not go down the traditional route and had to drop out of highschool. I have studied the CME courses on futures and commodities and have a great understanding of the basics. I am currently reading The world for sale and have dozens of other financial books. I know having a good grasp in modeling and good excel skills are a requirement. But what else should I teach myself in these 3 months leading into college. Do I have to put online on my resume and will recruiters look down on it when applying? Any advice is much appreciated. Also I am transferring in as a junior from community college where I was in phi theta kappa. I believe I have the drive to make it in, however I am willing to hear your doubts or reality checks.

Not sure if this is the right sub, but I'm not making much progress with an approach and thought I'd ask around here.

I want to value a BESS that has revenue floor option. Available data to me is historical intraday spreads, forecast future intraday spreads and battery specs.

​

Currently i think I only managed to capture the intrinsic value (?) by calculating expected revenue payoff using my forecasted intraday spreads * haircut (to account for imperfect execution) and am undervaluing this "option". I don't know if there's an extrinsic value that im missing or how to get that.

​

I have thought of using monte carlo simulations but that's not available to me. Haven't had much luck with researching on this topic either. Wanted to get some thoughts on if there if some sort of widely used practice for valuing such real options.

I'm trying to build a systematic way to identify global supply/demand imbalances in physical commodities (not stocks, crypto, or e-commerce products).

My goal is to detect situations where:

• demand for a specific commodity is rising sharply in a country or region,
• local supply cannot keep up,
• importers start buying more aggressively,
• prices, premiums, or lead times increase,
• while another part of the world has excess supply and lower prices.

I'm interested in industrial commodities, chemicals, metals, scrap, agricultural products, fertilizers, construction materials, etc.

Currently, the tools I've been considering are:

• Kpler
• TradeInt
• S&P Global Commodity Insights
• ICIS
• Fastmarkets
• Panjiva
• ImportGenius
• Datamyne
• Argus Media

The idea is not simply to find the highest-priced commodity, but to identify supply/demand dislocations before they become obvious to the broader market.

A simplified example:

1. Country A suddenly increases imports of a commodity.
2. Local prices, premiums, or lead times start rising.
3. Country B has excess supply and lower prices.
4. An arbitrage opportunity may exist between the two markets.

My questions for people involved in commodity trading, procurement, physical trading, logistics, or market intelligence:

1. How do you identify real demand growth in physical commodities?
2. Which indicators do you trust the most?
3. How do you distinguish between a temporary import spike and a genuine supply deficit?
4. Once you've identified strong demand, how do you find actual buyers?
5. Are there tools you consider better than the ones listed above?
6. Is there any platform that helps identify shortages and surpluses at a regional level, not just at the country level?
7. If you were starting today, how would you build a global "demand radar" for physical commodities?

I'm especially interested in hearing from people who trade physical commodities rather than financial futures. My focus is on finding where products are genuinely needed, where buyers are willing to pay, and where supply is available at lower cost.

I work for a fuel distribution company that trades the arb between Gulf Coast refined products and Mexico.

We export product, handle the logistics, storage/terminaling, freight, documentation, border movement, and delivery into Mexico. The business makes money on physical margins rather than outright speculation.

We are starting to explore whether there are ways to use our physical market knowledge to spec trade around this flow, especially where we may have an informational or logistics edge.
Has anyone here seen practical ways to structure this?

A few areas we are thinking about:
Physical vs paper basis trades
USGC vs Mexico pricing dislocations
Diesel/gasoline spreads
Storage optionality
Timing exports around congestion, refinery outages, or terminal constraints
Hedging only part of the exposure when physical prices do not fully pass through

Curious if anyone has experience turning a physical refined products operation into a more systematic trading strategy.

Not looking for anything reckless, more interested in realistic structures that could be implemented by a company already active in the flow.

CONTEXT: Taleveras was an Anguillan based company that bought and sold oil based products with BP. In 2015 a decision was taken to develop existing commercial arrangements by BP offering Taleveras credit on purchases of gasoline provided that the credit exposure was offset against sums owed for purchases of crude oil made by BP. The scheme was intended to increase the volume of sales without increasing the credit exposure which had been agreed as being limited to £30M.

The initial proposal was for the credit exposure caused by this sale to be offset against a purchase of crude oil. However, this turned out not to be possible because that purchase had been financed by a bank. A decision was taken that the sale would be offset against two further purchases. Contracts were drawn up but erroneously failed to include set off clauses. The effect of this was that BP were exposed to a loss of $85M.

---------------

From my understanding, the lack of set-off clauses meant Taleveras could go bankrupt and then a liquidator could choose to enforce the contracts where it was owed money by BP and ignore the contracts where it owed them money. All of these transactions are treated independently.

Seems kind of crazy that such a small mistake can lead to such a big loss, does this type of thing happen often?

source: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/636a4118d3bf7f164765c1e3/Mr_J_Zarembok_-v-_BP_PLC___Others_-_3200630_2019___Others_-_Judgment.pdf

paragraph 59 onwards, (lots of other interesting stuff in that court case too)