Practice Areas: Energy Industry
Energy Markets: Fuels, Upstream and Midstream
The upstream fuels and energy markets are undergoing tremendous changes, creating challenges and opportunities for market participants. Gas-fired generation is becoming increasingly dominant, placing pressures on supply infrastructure and generating price volatility. Coal—long thought to be in decline as a fuel of choice—has seen a rebirth due to climbing gas prices, sympathetic policies, and advances in clean coal technologies. Fuels managers must balance tactical scheduling and procurement with strategic planning and risk management to minimize costs yet ensure fuel is available to meet power generation needs and market opportunities.
ScottMadden understands this evolution and can help you meet these challenges by providing:
- Fuels Planning—We can provide support in constructing the optimal type and blend of spot and contract fuel to cost-effectively support long-term operation and growth strategies.
- Energy Market Analysis—We can identify energy market trends and pricing to help you pinpoint market opportunities—both in contracting and spot sales. On the sell side, we can assess customer needs.
- Fuel Hedging Strategies and Risk Management—We can ascertain the impact of generator operating strategies and fuels needs, as well as potential price and volumetric exposures. We can also help you develop action plans to mitigate risk.
- Merger Synergy Analysis and Integration Support—We can help you extract transaction value by identifying complementary or conflicting fuels positions. After the merger, we can work with your teams to ensure the requisite skills and staffing remain in-house and factor merger assumptions around fuels capabilities into business plans.