Client Overview

A large, diversified energy company operating across crude oil, refined products, logistics, and natural gas assets required a modern Commodity Trading and Risk Management platform to support its expanding commercial operations. The organization managed complex physical supply chains, refining activities, and financial exposures across multiple regions and commodities.

As the business continued to grow through acquisitions and market expansion, leadership recognized the need to modernize trading, risk, and accounting processes.

Business Challenge

The client was managing commodity trading and risk using a combination of spreadsheets and a legacy risk solution. This environment limited real-time visibility into positions, constrained mark-to-market accuracy, and increased operational and control risk across front, middle, and back office functions.

Key objectives included:

• Improving real-time visibility into physical and financial positions

• Strengthening mark-to-market valuation and risk reporting

• Automating pricing, valuation, and volumetric reporting

• Establishing auditable internal controls across trading and accounting

• Supporting future growth across additional commodities and assets

The Vessel Group’s Role

The Vessel Group was selected as the independent advisor and implementation partner to lead both the CTRM system selection and end-to-end implementation.

The engagement began with a deep assessment of existing commercial, operational, and accounting processes. The Vessel Group worked closely with stakeholders across trading, risk, operations, accounting, and IT to define future-state workflows aligned with the company’s strategic objectives.

Based on this assessment, a scalable CTRM platform was selected as the core system of record to support complex physical and financial commodity operations.

Solution Delivered

The Vessel Group led the implementation and integration of the selected CTRM platform, delivering a centralized system of record across the trading lifecycle. The solution enabled:

• Real-time position visibility across crude and refined products

• Automated pricing and daily mark-to-market valuations

• Enhanced risk positioning and exposure monitoring

• Integrated front, middle, and back office workflows

• Improved governance, auditability, and internal controls

The implementation was completed efficiently and positioned the organization to operate with greater confidence and control.

Outcome

Following go-live, the client achieved improved transparency across trading and risk, stronger financial controls, and a scalable foundation to support continued growth and expansion into new markets and commodities. The CTRM platform became a critical enabler of commercial decision-making and risk management.

About The Vessel Group

The Vessel Group is a Houston-based advisory firm specializing in commodity trading technology, system selection, implementation, optimization, and ongoing support. The firm provides senior-led guidance focused on aligning people, process, and technology to help energy and commodity organizations operate more effectively and make better-informed decisions.