Power, Gas, Oil & LNG Trading
Trading lifecycle, scheduling, logistics, valuation, risk and settlement.
Energy Trading & Commodities
Metals, Agriculture & Commodity Markets
In physical commodities the exposure includes the warehouse, the vessel and the quality clause.
Overview
Metals and agricultural trading carries detail financial markets never see: concentrates and refined metal with assay and quality adjustments, warehouse and warrant positions, crop seasonality and origination, freight, financing and quotational-period pricing. The trading system, the risk view and the operations have to carry all of it without losing the overall picture.
We work across that chain: deal and contract representation in the CTRM, inventory and logistics connected to the trading position, exposure that reflects quality, location and pricing period, financing and collateral positions, and the documentation and settlement operations that follow the goods.
Platform work runs through our ETRM & CTRM Platforms practice, credit and financing risk through Market, Credit & Counterparty Risk, and settlement and documentation through our operations practices. The same team covers the trading book and the physical chain.
What we do
Physical contracts carry terms that drive value: quality specifications, optionality on delivery and quantity, quotational-period pricing against exchange or assessment indices. We represent them in the CTRM so pricing exposure and P&L reflect the contract as written.
Warehouse and warrant positions, concentrates through smelting and refining, vessels and rail in transit — we connect inventory and movements to the trading position so location, quality and financing status are visible in one place.
Quotational-period pricing leaves books exposed between purchase and sale pricing dates. We build the exposure view across pricing periods, basis and quality differentials, and the P&L explain that separates price, volume, quality and timing effects.
Prepayments, repos and borrowing-base facilities sit against physical positions. We build the view that ties financing to the inventory that secures it, and the reporting a lender or credit committee can rely on.
Provisional and final invoicing on weights and assays, pricing adjustments applied once, and shipping documentation flowing with the goods. The settlement operation follows the contract, and disputes are worked from the same records both sides hold.
Inventory reconciliations against warehouse-keeper and terminal records, breaks worked while they are small, and a month-end process that proves the physical and financial books agree. Controls are built into the daily workflow, with clear ownership for each reconciliation.
What to expect
We start with the contracts and the inventory: how deals are represented, where positions sit, which reconciliations hold and which are worked by hand. The work then runs in weekly sessions with traders, traffic and logistics, risk and finance, led by a Capmark principal with a small senior team. Most clients start with one commodity or one part of the chain and extend from there.
Engagements range from a short diagnostic of one commodity chain to full CTRM and operations delivery.
01
Assess
Establish the current state, the constraints, the risks and the value at stake.
02
Define
Shape the target model and the business case with the executives who own the outcome.
03
Mobilise
Stand up the team, the plan and the governance around the outcome.
04
Implement
Design, build and test the change, with the business alongside.
05
Sustain
Cutover, hypercare and handover, so the business runs it under its own control.
The same five stages on every engagement, led by senior practitioners end to end. How we work
Insights
Related thinking.
Get in touch
Talk to a Partner about Metals, Agriculture & Commodity Markets.
Tell us what needs to change and where the pressure or risk is showing.