Commercial Analyst at Vitol
Any view on the commercial analyst role at Vitol. It seems to be a predominately market risk/position based role - is this likely to lead into a market analyst/trading role in the commodity sphere? Thanks
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It's a a hybrid role between market risk/desk analyst/product control. The run very very lean over there. In general there is not much of a promotion/career growth mindset at Vitol--this is more pronounced at the position player level (commercial analyst)--they simply view it as easier to go out and buy whatever skill the need vs groom internally. They will tell you in the interview that you won't become a trader there.
I'm quite familiar about how it works, I interviewed for a CA role (lost out to a friend of mine who took it and is still there).
I second that. Had an interview there for this role recently
Did they explicitly state that you won't become a trader there coming internally from the commercial analyst role?
For energy I’d stay away from those shops (glen/traf/vit etc) as a junior starting out in the biz.
Doesn't Glencore have a graduate program though? Or, does that just essentially pump out ops roles.
They do have a trader graduate scheme. For the US at least, they only interview for the Oil division in NYC (office used to be in Stamford). I interviewed there, and they told us that you would have the opportunity to take a test at the end of the program and get a trading seat, but I'm not sure how many end up getting it. Everyone I met was very sharp though.
Better off starting at a supermajor from what I have heard.
Supermajor is ideal for new grads in oil, but you can always do two years at Vitol before getting into Shell/BP's program in the "worst case"--I wouldn't discount Vitol too heavily for an early-career candidate.
As others noted, very hard to start at trade houses and work up to taking risk (taking 5+ years from those I know). Or, I know people lateralling in after a few years somewhere else actually taking risk.
Lateral in if you want to trade, but is a good role and a good firm that will open other doors. Nature of the industry
This is a really good role so long as you keep in mind what I advise everyone hoping to start in physical trading do - keep the next two moves in mind. Ultimately, you need to find someone who will take a chance on putting you in a risk-taking seat knowing that you haven't done it before. The balance to this is you want to be somewhere you're learning from people who really know what they are doing. What Vitol will almost certainly give you is the ability to learn to how these guys approach their trading. What it will almost certainly NOT give you is a platform conducive to someone taking a chance on you. The risk to me is making the jump to the risk seat in a couple years. You'll have as valuable of a knowledge base as most people with better internal opportunities than Vitol provides (which are the same opportunities you'll be after), but they will have the advantage of being internal and slightly more "vetted". You'll have the allure/sex appeal of Vitol and can defensibly contend familiarity with large and sophisticated strategies. There's a lot of luck involved, but I can think of only one other place that I'd potentially choose over this, which is to say that this role increases you're likelihood of getting a seat a lot more than others, but would not go so far as to make it "likely".
As CA you'll be in that role for 3-4 years. You'll learn operations the first couple of years. Then you will be moved slowly into the derivatives side of things. Nothing very major. Hedging here and there. Hopefully your desk does not make a loss in that time else you'll lose your job.
After that the when will you be moved into the physical side of the business depends. The number of seats for physical traders is very limited and you need some one to bat for you to move.
Majors offer better job security for the same role. But they are not as sneaky in operations as compared to trading firms.
This is very helpful. What do you mean by trade houses being more "sneaky" in operations?
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