Ben Holt- Senior Associate

Ben has over 35 years’ experience including periods spent in senior management roles as well as in consulting, focused especially on Europe and Africa but including most other regions of the world. His expertise spans oil markets and trading, commercial, refining, tanker shipping and infrastructure.

His career has included seven years as Head of Oil Marketing at Africa-focused Tullow Oil and previously fifteen years at Enterprise Oil, as well as earlier roles in oil trading and refinery supply co-ordination at BP. He also spent a decade in consulting, including as Vice President, Downstream Consulting and SME for oil infrastructure at Wood Mackenzie.

Ben has managed and executed downstream consulting projects on transaction support, market reviews, government policy support and oil marketing strategy and business process reviews, as well as providing expert witness and training and development services.

Examples of Ben’s experience include:

Oil Marketing:

• Crude Oil Marketing strategy reviews, for producers based in Europe and Africa
• Oil marketing and trading business process reviews for an international trading company and an oil marketing entity.

Price Risk Management

• Review of derivatives portfolio and hedging activity in an arbitration
• Evaluation of embedded options in oil sales contracts

Oil Pricing and Valuation:

• Pricing for long term sales of crude oil to a local refiner in N Africa
• Valuation of various grades of Fuel Oil in the Asian market
• Valuation of a Caspian crude oil in the Mediterranean market, as an Expert Witness in international arbitration;
• Assessment of market-representativeness of a North Sea oil pipeline value adjustment procedure for a participant producer, as a basis for opening a review of the mechanism;
• Assessment of market-representativeness of the Forties pipeline value adjustment procedure for a user.

Oil Refining Economics

• Modelling margins with a wide variety of crude and product slates for several European refineries that were potential targets for a producer’s crude oils, including consideration of economics of carbon emissions
• Consideration of most likely refinery outlets for a new ultra-low sulphur crude oil in Asian refineries.

Oil Logistics and Infrastructure:

• Led team as seller’s market advisor on a portfolio of European oil storage, sold for ca. $500 million
• Buyer’s advisor reviewing two large international portfolios of oil storage and other logistics being offered by affiliates of trading companies
• Reviews and evaluations of strategic storage facilities in NW Europe
• Numerous other storage and infrastructure projects in N America, SE Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
• Chartering of dynamically-positioned and conventional tankers for oil storage and ship-to-ship tanker operations.

Oil Industry Training:

• Programme covering oil sales contracts, pricing, forward futures and derivatives markets, refining and shipping for a producer
• Visiting lecturer at Cass (now Bayes) Business School, London for over a decade
• Has run numerous training programmes in Europe, the FSU, UK and Asia.

Ben has particular experience in the areas of crude oil evaluation, assay analysis and value adjustment mechanisms. Examples include:

• Valuation of a Caspian crude oil in the Mediterranean market, as an Expert Witness in an international arbitration;
• Assessment of market-representativeness of a North Sea oil pipeline value adjustment procedure for a participant producer, as a basis for opening a review thereof;
• Forecasts of the impact of IMO-2020 fuel specifications on crude oil market price differentials for a producer of ultra-low sulphur crudes;
• Assessment of market price differentials for new crude oils, from light sweet to heavy sour, in Europe, Africa and Latin America, for operator producers, for presentation to JV partners and inclusion in internal economics;
• Review of the range of crude oil value adjustment methodologies used internationally, as input to commercial negotiations for a new international oil pipeline;
• Assessment of market-representativeness of the Forties pipeline value adjustment procedure for a user;
• Independent assessment for a major oil company Operator as to whether a change in market circumstances had affected the representativeness of an oil pipeline value adjustment procedure.

David Povey- Senior Associate

David has over 35 years’ experience of trading crude oil and derivative instruments for oil and trading companies including Amerada Hess, Rhein Oel, Enterprise Oil, Addax, BP, Statoil, EnQuest and latterly in Occidental Houston, where he was VP of International Oil Trading until the corona virus hit.

Although David’s first degree was in geology he has an MBA from the London Business School and is highly numerate. He is particularly skilled in the valuation of traded options and the real option modelling of assets including embedded options that are frequently over-looked by asset owners. His knowledge of derivatives and complex strategies is formidable. Bu,t David also has hands on physical trading experience in the Atlantic Basin as a “relationship” trader.

His recent US Gulf Coast experience puts him in an ideal position to participate in the debate of the evolution of the Brent benchmark pricing basket to include WTI Midland.