Optimizing Your Physical Assets in a Financial World

Optimizing Your Physical Assets in a Financial World & the Role of Trading

Some producers focus on the physical optimization of their production/processor asset, ensuring maximum throughput and consider themselves as net takes of the market price for their commodities. We will introduce mental models to view these assets as financial options, setting the stage to commercially optimize their physical assets to maximize profits.

About Quantim Intelligence: We are a leading business strategy and analytics consulting firm helping organizations navigate uncertainty and optimize their physical assets. With expertise in commercial analytics, commodities trading and quantitative finance, we empower our clients to make risk-adjusted decisions to achieve their business goals.

Speaker's Abstracts:

Ben Cho

Ben has 16 years of downstream fuels and lubricants sales and marketing experience with Imperial Oil and ExxonMobil, spanning North and South America. Notable jobs have included the Retail Pricing Manager and the trading analyst position for Canadian products. In his last position with Imperial Oil and ExxonMobil, Ben ran a team of business and pricing analysts spanning the entire Americas for ExxonMobil’s fuels business. His skillset and knowledge base spans products trading, B2B sales, retail operations, retail pricing and B2B pricing across Mexico, Canada and the US. He has an undergraduate and master’s in aerospace engineering from the University of Toronto and is currently a Partner with Quantim Intelligence.

Philippe Cote

Philippe Cote is a partner at Quantim Intelligence. He is a seasoned professional with over three decades of expertise in trading, risk management, and analytics, with a career that has spanned continents from Asia to Europe and North America. He semi-retired in 2018 and is Executive Professor in Finance at the University of Alberta, where he currently occupies the Sorensen Chair in Energy. Recently, he concluded a significant 5-year advisory role with ExxonMobil/Imperial Oil to support the development of asset-backed trading capabilities. His foundational experiences at the Bank of Canada and Bank of England in analytics and trading have provided him with a deep understanding of global financial systems. He has worked for RBC, BP, and Cenovus Energy amongst others. He has built several teams from the ground up in leadership positions (core mandate at Cenovus), with a deep understanding from the ground up to strategic matters across energy and financial markets.

Nima Safaian

Nima Safaian has extensive experience in the energy industry. He started as a nuclear engineer and later transitioned into commercial roles, where he built and scaled teams and capabilities in commercial optimization, asset strategy, market analytics, and risk management. Currently, he is a Partner at Quantim Intelligence, a commercial strategy consultancy. Nima has held senior positions at BP supply & trading, Scotiabank, and most recently served as the Vice President of Value Chain Optimization at Cenovus Energy. He holds degrees in nuclear engineering and an MBA, and he is passionate about learning new advanced analytics methods to enhance complex commercial decision-making.

Luncheon Details

Doors open at 11:45 with lunch starting at noon. Presentation will begin around 12:25.

PLEASE NOTE: We are meeting in room 416 (4th floor) for November only.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

University of Calgary Downtown Campus, 906 8 Avenue Southwest, Calgary, Canada