Contracts Administrator

Company Description

Vitol is a leader in energy and commodities. Vitol produces, manages and delivers energy and commodities to consumers and industry worldwide. In addition to its primary business of trading, Vitol is invested in infrastructure globally, with $10+billion invested in long-term assets.

Vitol’s customers include national oil companies, multinationals, leading industrial companies and utilities. Founded in Rotterdam in 1966, today Vitol serves its customers from some 40 offices worldwide. Revenues in 2024 were $331bn.

Our people are our business. Talent is precious to us and we create an environment in which individuals can reach their full potential, unhindered by hierarchy. Our team comprises more than 65+ nationalities and we are committed to developing and sustaining a diverse work force. Learn more about us here.

This Role is located in Houston, TX - In office 5x a week

Job Description

This position is in the Contracts Group reporting to the Contract Lead and supports activity for various products including crude, natural gas, power and fuel oil.  The Contracts Administrator’s primary role is to mitigate Economic, Operational, Legal and Regulatory risk associated with commodity transactions.  Mitigation is done by drafting and dispatching of contracts reflecting all agreed economic and non-economic terms.  In addition, reviewing and confirming broker and counterparty confirmations while promptly escalating discrepancies to Front Office for resolution.

Specific job duties include:

• Confirm all transactions completed are valid deals; promptly escalating to Front Office of missing or erroneous trades
• Ensure all trade confirmations are drafted, issued, and executed in accordance with procedures.
• Ensure all drafted confirmations incorporate all approved and required terms along with appropriate references to any master agreements (ISDA, EEI, NAESB…etc)
• Checking incoming counterparty confirms for errors and sending responses as needed
• Assuring all broker confirmations are received and matched against trade economics within trading system
• Liaising with Legal, Credit, Operations and other support partners to assure any additional terms are properly incorporated into contracts. 
• Actively follow up on outstanding confirmations, escalate and resolve any lengthy delay with Contract Manager and Front Office
• Establish and maintain strong working relationships with Front Office and ensure their questions and request are addressed timely and accurately.
• Provide weekly updates of any outstanding items to Contracts Lead and Contract Manager
• Make sure all documents, emails and other supporting correspondence are filed in electronic retention system for each trade
• Responding timely to any external queries on confirmations.
• Escalate to Contracts Lead and Contracts Manager any issues with contract system
• Responsible for updating and maintaining procedures documents
• Proactively identify opportunities to further streamline process and improve productivity.
• Participate in testing of system and process upgrades 

Qualifications

Preferred Experience:

• Minimum 1+ years’ experience commodities trading environment
• Experience or understanding of programming languages like Phyton or SQL
• Conversational Spanish skills
• Bachelor’s degree in numerate or semi-numerate subject (engineering, math, accounting, economics) or relevant experience in a related field
• Understanding financial implications associated with the movement of physical product
• Ability to assess contractual risk and make decisions accordingly
• Capable of effectively communicating with internal and external contacts
• Document administration in Microsoft Word

Additional Information

Competencies

• Self-motivated and proactive in problem solving
• Highly organized
• Takes the initiative, self-starter
• Works well under pressure / fast-paced environment
• Analytical approach to data
• Adaptability
• Seeks to continuously build knowledge
• Excellent communication skills