Past Course Graduates

Schupan & Sons, Inc.
Scrivener Oil Company, Inc.
Sebesta Bloomberg
Sequatchie Concrete
Sinclair Oil SKS Inc.
Somerset Refinery
Sound Refining
Southern Loggers Cooperative
Standard Forwarding
State of Georgia
State of Oklahoma
Summit Biofuels
Summit Energy
Sungard Fame Enegy
Sunoco
T.D. Petes
T-Chek Systems
Tesoro
The Hurt Company, Inc.
TMGroup Tooley Oil Company
Trident Seafoods Corp.
Trimac Transportation
Tri-State Petroleum Corporation
Unified Grocers
Union Pacific Railroad
United Energy Distributors, Inc.
United States Postal Service
U.S. GAO
Valero
Valley Wide Coop
Village Mobil/River St. Market
Vipergas LLC Wada Farms, Inc.
Waste Management
Western Convenience Stores, Inc.
Whole Sale Fuels Distributors, Inc.
WinCo Foods
Wright Petroleum
Young Oil Company, Inc.
YRC Worldwide
Z-1 Express

 

8:00 – 9:00 a.m.

Bonus Breakfast Session: Using Technology
to Buy Faster and Cheaper

Sponsored by

As you develop your fuel buying program, one of the biggest challenges can be in the way you internally gather prices. Pulling prices from the web, email, or fax leaves you vulnerable to making errors and missing price moves – especially when markets are moving fast. You’ll learn how marketers and end-users use the latest technology to help them gather prices more efficiently, buy better and ultimately reduce their net buying costs.

 

9:00 – 9:45 a.m.

The State of the Oil Industry: What to Expect and How it Affects You

Now that we understand the basics of the fuel supply chain, let’s build on that and discuss the state of the industry. We’ll lay out:

• Where the industry is now -- both on a supply and pricing basis.
• What major factors are affecting the market.
• What we can expect in terms of price and supply trends over the next 6 to 12 months.
• How this will affect NYMEX, spot and ultimately rack prices.
• The key things you can look for each week to help you gauge the market’s direction (and they’re all FREE!).

9:45 – 10:00 a.m.

Refreshment Break

 

Advanced Buying Workshop – We’ve mastered the basics, now let’s move on to some more complex (but still easy to understand) buying concepts.

 

10:00 – 10:30 a.m.

Part One: Understanding Alternative Fuel Pricing

Alternative fuels – especially ethanol – are becoming more widely used in the downstream energy industry. It is critical for all fuel buyers to understand the role that ethanol plays in the markets, including how it is priced on a rack and spot level, and how the blender tax credits work.

 

BONUS: A review of how biodiesel pricing has advanced, and how benchmarks in this area are changing.

 

10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Part Two: A Simple Explanation of Hedging

As you complete your fuel buying program, you have to understand where your business is most vulnerable to spikes in the market. Is it your fuel budget or is it your retail margins? More and more fuel buyers are moving toward risk management, or hedging strategies, to help them control costs. In this session, we’ll give simple, easy to understand explanations of:

• Hedging vs. speculating – what you need to understand.
• Hedging: what it is, and how it works.
• What the NYMEX has to do with hedging.
• Hedges for end-users, retailers and jobbers, based on some simple examples.
• Caps, collars, over-the-counter swaps and forward deals – what you need to know.
• Whether you should hedge.

12:00 p.m.

Conference Adjourns