Trading Operator at BP

About The Role

• The Nigeria Trading Operator handles the logistics of physical deals ensuring that all safety obligation, contractual & compliance and commercial obligations are met. Trading Operators have a key role to play in ensuring that the front to back process runs efficiently and that valuable data and information is collected, entered and forwarded in a timely manner to provide support to many other teams within ST&S allowing effective management of the business.

What You Will Deliver

• You will be responsible for the contractual and financial performance of sales and purchase agreements. This will involve working closely with traders to improve profits and minimise losses on trades.
• Trading Operators are required to nominate oil movements and prepare all documentation instructions.
• Where appropriate you will appoint Cargo Assurance and/or independent inspectors.
• A crucial part of the role is to supervise all liftings, maintaining awareness of demurrage implications and investigating outturn losses.
• It will be crucial to adhere to HSSE and BP policies.
• Trading Operators will recognise and understand concepts of pre-finance and work with the credit teams to administer letters of credit, where appropriate.
• Individuals will develop strong working relationships with traders, third parties, associates and other ST&S departments.
• You will be required to enter timely and accurate trade data into the Trading Operations system of record, Operations Workbench (OWB)
• The team actively assist in the design and development of the systems that the business will be implementing for the future benefit of ST&S and you may be requested to support and test new releases to ensure the system is fit for purpose.
• Accurately supervise stock positions within BP owned and third-party tankage on a daily basis using stock tracking tools, balancing with BP’s central operations system (OWB)
• Maintain, improve and update stock tracking tools and document handling processes, aiming for automation where possible.
• Support vessel operators for inbound cargoes discharging to counterparty and BP leased facilities
• Supervise region-wide inbound vessels using BP’s vessel tracking tools.
• You may be required to provide cross‑cover for other RSO operators within the team to support terminal operations and tankage management in the relevant country.
• Collaborate with and manage relationships with in-country agents (e.g., collateral managers, customs agents, superintendent) and service providers (e.g., terminals, storage facilities) with strict adherence to BP’s E&C policies.
• See to timely payment of ancillary fees that are key to in-tank sales operations e.g., storage and jetty/ pipeline throughput fees.
• See to organized filing of key documentation e.g., bills of lading, customs declarations, custody transfer certificates.
• Timely issuance of key documentation to facilitate operations and to enable payment from counterparties.
• You will be expected to have a thorough understanding of contractual agreements as well as our commercial position with respect to third party term contracts.
• Collaborate closely with local front office team in cargo planning and open credit facility management.
• Working closely with exposure and commodity risk teams to ensure volumes are hedged against flat price risk, and accounted for.
• Quarterly applications to local regulator for laycans in collaboration with commercial manager and local origination team.
• Stay abreast matters of fuel quality and standards, making sure to alert front office team of any changes to fuel specifications locally.
• Lead operational component of new business development endeavors, seeking assistance from wider operations teams where vital.
• Ensuring that all compliance documentation for agents and service providers are up to date.

What You Will Need To Be Successful

• Strong commercial instinct
• Flexible and open thinker
• Pro-active and independent worker
• Ability to work under pressure
• Ability to prioritise and coordinate work
• Ability to work to numerous and frequent deadlines
• A strong standout colleague
• Influencing skills
• Performance Bias - focuses efforts and prioritises work to deliver business value
• Business Awareness - takes account of inter-relationships between customers, suppliers, & the organisation
• Partnership and Collaboration - actively engages and respects the diverse contributions of team, partners or networks
• Digital skills (e.g., VBA/EXCEL and Python) and/ or a willingness to develop these skills.
• Knowledge of local and regional downstream petroleum sector