Saturday, January 23, 2010

Ushering in 2010..... Wooottt......

No New Year resolutions as usual.... Just aspire to be the best I can in all aspect of my life......

Im currently in my new role..... Very exciting, I must say...... This week is sorta my "baptism of fire" as my colleague is on leave...... Im technically still in onboarding phase hence its really quite tough trying to cover for her as there are still alot to learn......

Nonetheless, I made many first yesterday......

Ive made my first deal, sold my first paper swap, bought my first paper swap all in one day...... Yippee...... As I progressed into my role, Im alittle clearer on what my role entails......

My official title is Port Commercial Manager and many friends asked me what is a Port Commercial Manager (PCM)...... Three weeks ago, I am not too sure how to respond to that, but now, I can safely answer that after my stint in the hot seat......

Essentially, there are two aspects to my role, Pricing and Supply......

For pricing, I priced the queries coming in for Bunker Oil...... I quote the price (spot) or a pricing formula (term) based on the information I have, hows the cargo and paper market is moving, what is our competitors pricing, refinery margin, my nett position (long or short) and alittle of where I think the market is heading towards........ It sounds like a trader role but its not with some constraints like, PCMs can only take limited exposure and are suppose to hedge all our exposures if possible. We can only take limited exposure....... In gist, trying to optimize the margin based on the available information I can get........

For supply, its the not-so-sexy part but with alot of learnings, I make sure that I have the oil to sell, talking to refinery people, I make sure that I have the available supply modes (barges, trucks) talking alot to my ops team (schedulers) and fighting fire like Vessels ETA changes, product off-spec, handle disputes between customer and us, forecasting the oil I need to sell for future months....... Something like a trader ops with differences that I have my ops team and schedulers supporting me......

All in all, a very interesting role where I think I can get alot of value for....... This is part of my rotation so I will only do it for 2 years before Im rotated again......

As Jong put it, PCM is like a high level trading ops....
As Mey put it, PCM is a mini trader with limited exposure.....
The way I see it, PCM is like an optimizer, making the most value out of the end to end process based on the decision they take...... (should I sell today, or wait for tomorrow, should I optimized volume, or go for margin, should I sell more of these, or more of that)......

Definitely very different from my analyst role where Im usually in the sidelines giving only some influence in the action, now Im in the thick of the action and making things happen...... Very lucky me...... And thanks to Mey for recommending me for this role......

Another interesting element is that I will be virtually doing all this for my countries in charged (PH, CN, HK, TH)....... Will be heading to Manila next Sunday, Hong Kong and Bangkok in March to get to know the local processes, people and customer....... Will be very challenging and I welcome it...... Will plan another "asia tour" in the second half of the year.......

Thats a not so brief intro to my new role...... Anyway, its time of the year where I get my "results" for my previous role......

In 2008, Ive gotten a B+/A- equivalent review.......
In 2009, Ive been getting some rave review from my GM and my line, Im hoping for something like A-/A now....... That will be my consistent target...... Im a result oriented person, I hope to be rewarded for the efforts Ive put in and Im lucky that my management has recognized it at least verbally to me.......

Back in SMU, my GPA is sorta like my guiding lamp where I reference it to know how much more effort I should put in to achieve my aim...... In Shell, I rely on my IPF and CEP...... I just hope that I can mantained a high level of performance without compromising my personal commitments, so far, I think I have been able to do that......

Thankful that God had been blessing me with all this opportunities......
Push on, Push on!!!!

On a side note:

Ive got the chance to see an old video which had always moved me to tears (back in SMU)..... Im not shy to say that this video did it to me again, Its a video on Team Hoyts; Think I mentioned this before on one of my entries so wont dwell deep into that; For those who are interested, its an inspiring one.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLUPiAs20i4&feature=related

And trying to learn this worship song on guitar by MercyMe called "I can only imagine".... Its the same song in the video...... A real meaningful one......

CNY Approaches, wootttt.... Till the next update..... Cheerios......

Labels: PCM

posted at 23.1.10 _________________________________________________________________