Thursday, February 14, 2013

German Utility Giant E.ON To Start U.S. Power/Natural-gas Trading Operation With American Traders

The more the merrier.
E.ON pretty much defines the word 'behemoth".
From Bloomberg:

Shale Boom Draws EON to Hire U.S. Traders as EU Shrinks
EON SE will start a U.S. power and natural-gas trading operation as Germany’s largest utility seeks to profit from North America’s shale-gas revolution.

The company, which already trades U.S. power and gas derivatives from Germany, will hire five traders in Chicago, executives at EON said. The group will trade physical power and gas, may lease pipeline and storage capacity and is looking to secure liquefied natural gas capacity from the U.S., they said.

EON, which has about 200 traders in its home town of Dusseldorf, is grappling with a stagnant market in Europe as a weak economy holds back energy demand. The company traded less power, gas, carbon permits and coal in the first nine months of 2012 compared with a year earlier. North America offers a growth as the boom in output from U.S. shale fields helps revive the economy by cutting industry’s energy costs.

“For energy trading, North America has become more important over the past 12 months because energy-intensive industry is seeing an renaissance thanks to the slump in gas prices,” Gareth Griffiths, EON Trading’s chief commercial officer for global merchant trading said in an interview in Dusseldorf.
In addition, the retreat of some banks from commodities markets offers a chance for others to expand, he said....MORE
Here's one of the help-wanted ads:
Head of Trading 

Location: USA
Industry: Energy & Utilities
Company: One of the World's Largest Investor-owned Power and Gas Companies
View company name when you join Doostang

Job Description:

Responsibilities
-General Overview for building and management of all North American energy trading, marketing and operations, personnel, systems, processes, ETRM Implementation and risk guidelines

-Specific leadership of the trading team: gas and power, physical and financial traders.

-Focus will flow and prop trading, with an eventual focus on third party sales and asset trading....
They're being modest. E.ON is THE largest investor owned utility.