Senior Risk Analyst - Physical Energy Trading

Senior Risk Analyst - Physical Energy Trading

London Permanent Energy & Commodities

We are working with an established energy trading business looking to appoint a Senior Risk Analyst to its London team.

This is a hands on role sitting close to the trading activity, with responsibility for understanding physical transactions, translating contractual terms into positions and exposures, and ensuring that daily mark to market P&L accurately reflects the underlying economics of the book.

The position would particularly suit someone from a product control, deals desk, middle office or physical commodity risk background who enjoys getting underneath the detail of individual trades rather than relying solely on system-generated reporting.

The role

You will take direct responsibility for a physical trading book, working closely with Trading, Commercial, Finance and other control functions.

Day to day, this will include:

• Ownership and oversight of physical commodity positions and exposures
• Production, validation and explanation of daily mark to market P&L
• Understanding how contractual terms translate into physical and financial exposures
• Reviewing market data, curves and valuation inputs
• Investigating P&L movements, discrepancies and reporting breaks
• Understanding the interaction between physical transactions and associated hedging
• Working with Finance around reconciliation and month end processes
• Challenging existing methodologies and improving controls and reporting
• Supporting the continued development of systems and processes
• Acting as a senior technical reference point and helping develop less experienced members of the team

The environment is relatively lean, so this is not a position where every calculation is delivered by a highly automated platform. You will need to understand what sits behind the numbers and be capable of working through a position or P&L calculation independently when required.

Your background

We are particularly interested in candidates with experience gained within physical energy or commodity trading, ideally covering refined products, fuels or related markets.

You are likely to have a background in one or more of:

• Product Control
• Deals Desk
• Trading Middle Office
• Physical Commodity Risk
• P&L / Position Control

Direct physical energy experience would be particularly relevant, although candidates from other physical commodity markets may also be considered where the underlying skills are transferable.

You should be able to demonstrate strong practical experience of physical contracts, positions, exposures, hedging and mark to market P&L, alongside the confidence to discuss and challenge valuation methodologies.

Strong Excel and analytical skills are important, as is the ability to explain complex exposures clearly to both trading and non trading stakeholders.

Why consider it?

The attraction is the combination of ownership, proximity to the business and opportunity to influence how the function develops.

Rather than joining a large, heavily automated control environment with a narrowly defined remit, you will have the opportunity to understand a trading book in depth, improve how risk and P&L are analysed and reported, and play a meaningful role in developing the wider team.

Over time, the business also intends to broaden its analytical risk capability. Experience of measures such as VaR is therefore useful, but this is not a conventional quantitative market risk position. The immediate requirement is for someone with strong physical commodity, product control and P&L fundamentals who can understand a trade from first principles.