Principal Technical Manager

HSB Solomon Associates LLC (Solomon), a subsidiary of Hartford Steam Boiler and Munich Re, is seeking candidates to work in a dynamic, fast-paced business environment as a Principal Technical Manager – Commodity Pricing. Solomon is the leading performance improvement company for the global energy industry. With its global headquarters in Dallas and regional offices in Houston, London, and Manama, Solomon serves clients in nearly 80 countries. Solomon provides data-driven, strategic insight across the energy industry, helping its clients achieve greater efficiency, reliability, and profitability.

BASIC FUNCTION

The Principal Technical Manager – Commodity Pricing is responsible for providing guidance, analysis, and support to Solomon’s Comparative Performance Analysis™ (CPA™) benchmarking studies and selected consulting projects. The CPA studies include Solomon’s Worldwide Fuels Refinery Performance Analysis (Fuels Study), which covers renewable fuels, its Worldwide Paraffinic Lube Refinery Performance Analysis (Lube Study), its Worldwide Aromatics Plant Performance Analysis (Aromatics Study), and its Worldwide Olefin Plant Performance Analysis (Olefin Study). The Principal Technical Manager will also provide expertise in commodity pricing and refinery planning and optimization and will analyze comparative performance and industry data to provide business insights to Solomon clients. This position resides within Solomon’s Refining & Logistics business unit, and it is integral to the overall success of the Fuels Study and Lube Study.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Technical Roadmap

Maintain and develop a regional, globally consistent commodities pricing model to support Solomon’s CPA benchmarking studies, including the Fuels Study, Lube Study, Aromatics Study, and Olefin Study.

Establish and maintain a freight model basedon regional standards. Provid insights, gap analysis, and solutions to assigned clients and act as a point of contact for all clients for all commodity pricing questions. 

Oversee the technical roadmap for managing crude assays as required to execute the Fuels Study and enable long-term market growth and achievement of business objectives.

Own and lead enhancement of the Fuels Study and Lube Study, including both studies' benchmarking methodologies and calculations, margin-and product-quality-related scope, and insight generation. 

Conduct management, planning, and execution of material balance changes to the Fuels Study and Lube Study and the studies’ commodity pricing methodologies. Serve as custodian of Solomon methodology and assume accountability for adherence to it.

Industry Trends & Market Intelligence

Maintain knowledge of trends and key client initiatives in the refining and lube base oil industries and apply that market intelligence to evolve the benchmarking and consulting services Solomon offers.

Conceptualize, define, and implement changes to CPA study scope, metrics, and deliverables to address current and future industry challenges.

Increase value to clients by expanding and deepening the insights that clients receive from study participation.

Application of New Technologies & Analytical Methodologies

Apply new technologies and analytical methodologies to uncover new classes of insights from Solomon’s intellectual property and databases to include new insights pertaining to sustainability.

Define infrastructure improvements that increase the efficiency of commodity price modeling, client study participation, and Solomon study execution, in addition to reducing the effort required to obtain meaningful performance insights.

Internal Collaboration

Proactively collaborate with the CPA Study Manager(s), Product Management, the Intellectual Property team, and the Technology team in coordinating pricing- and margin-related study improvement activities in alignment with company timelines and resource availability.

Act as subject matter expert for the Fuels Study and Lube Study Material Balance and Product Quality section, which measures inputs and outputs to a facility.

Supplement the CPA study advisor team during the study cycle, to include delivery of study results presentations to clients, analysis of client data to determine needed performance improvements, review of client input data for accuracy, quality, and consistency, and creation of study deliverables.

Project Execution Support 

Assist with the execution and delivery of assigned performance improvement projects as a subject matter expert.

EDUCATION

Required:

Bachelor’s degree in engineering (Chemical, Mechanical, Electrical, Petroleum, or another related engineering degree).

Preferred:

Master’s degree and/or advanced professional degree (e.g., MBA, PhD, etc.).

WORK EXPERIENCE

Required:

12+ years of experience in an oil and gas operating company and/or energy consulting company.

8+ years of experience in oil and gas economics and/or planning and optimization within an operating or trading organization.

Experience in plant performance management (strategic planning, goal setting, metric design, implementation, and stewardship).

Experience with price modeling in support of linear programming (LP) or forecasting activities.

Experience in commodity supply and trading activities (selling and logistics).

Experience in management of crude assay representations and with assay management software.

Preferred:

Career progression spanning multiple oil and gas facilities and international companies.

Experience in fuels economics and trade flows that extends to multiple global markets.

Demonstrable experience in evaluating economics of feedstocks and products through asset economist or analyst-type roles.

Familiarity with Solomon’s Fuels Study and/or Lube Study, with normalization techniques, and with metrics from the client’s perspective.

COMPETENCIES

Required:

Understanding of refined product trade flows underpinning global supply and demand and refining performance metrics.

Knowledge of how to use advanced linear programming (LP) to create and run common refining and petrochemical LP program reports and ability to change LP model structures (inserting new sub-models, blends, or other).

Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, including excellent verbal, written, listening, public speaking, and presentation skills.

Excellent people skills with the ability to successfully collaborate in a global, multi-disciplinary, diverse, matrixed, and dynamic team environment.

Ability to independently solve difficult problems that require adaptation and modification of standard techniques, procedures, and criteria.

Ability to translate complex business analytics and technical concepts into information consumable by executives and non-technical personnel, both internally and externally.

Ability to gain insight into customer needs and to build and deliver solutions that meet customer expectations.

Excellent data and performance analysis skills, with excellent attention to detail.

Advanced Microsoft Excel modeling skills, with the ability to create clear, well-documented, and self-explanatory Excel models to execute complex calculations.

Familiar with data analytics methods and tools.

Familiar with application of statistical and solver techniques in price modeling.

Ability to manage complexity by acquiring data from multiple and diverse sources when solving problems; ability to uncover root causes to difficult problems.

Ability to cultivate innovation by coming up with useful ideas that are new, better, or unique; introduces new ways of looking at problems.

Ability to deliver high-quality work product using Solomon documentation standards as appropriate.

Ability to mobilize available internal/external resources and orchestrate multiple activities simultaneously to accomplish goals.

Proficiency in Microsoft Office products such as Word and PowerPoint®.

Proven track record of continuous improvement and creating new and better ways for the organization to be successful.

Preferred:

Experience with basic Excel VBA scripts.

Experience with SQL extracting and with manipulating information from relational databases using simple scripts.

OTHER

Willing to travel approximately 15% of the time, both domestically and internationally.

This position would be based in Solomon’s Dallas, Houston, Bahrain, or UK office. Remote US locations may also be considered.

At HSB Solomon Associates, a subsidiary of The Hartford Steam Boiler and of Munich Re, we see